costermonger

English

A costermonger with his handcart, London, early 20th century

Alternative forms

• costardmonger, coster-monger

Etymology

From costard (“cooking apple”) +‎ monger.

Noun

costermonger (plural costermongers)

1. (British) A trader who sells fruit and vegetables from a cart or barrow in the street.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     I cannot tell, vertue is of ſo little regard in theſe coſtar-mongers times, that true valour is turnd berod […]

   • 1808 January 18, “Sporting Intelligence”, in The Sporting Magazine, or Monthly Calendar, of the Transactions of the Turf, the Chase, and Every Other Diversion Interesting to the Man of Pleasure, Enterprize, & Spirit, volume XXXI, number 184, London: Printed for J. Wheble, 18, Warwick Square, →OCLC, page 208:

     The Saint Monday Gemmen held their diversions on the 18th, near Clay-hill, which consisted of a pugilistic exhibition between G. Wilkie, a coster-monger, and Jeffery Smith, a professor, but little calculated to astonish the spectators at his professional skill. The battle was for ten guineas; and, after a contest of about forty minutes, in which the combatants were decently feaked, and the head of Jeffery was a good deal disfigured, he resigned the contest, and the coster-monger was carried to Westminster in triumph, [...]

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 23, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:

     We arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields without any new adventures, except encountering an unlucky donkey in a costermonger’s cart, who suggested painful associations to my aunt.

   • 1889, Oscar Wilde, “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.” Chapter 1, in Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories,^[1]

     He was an extraordinary old aristocrat, who swore like a costermonger, and had the manners of a farmer.

   • 1899 September – 1900 July, Joseph Conrad, chapter XIII, in Lord Jim: A Tale, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1900, →OCLC, pages 160–161:

     He had loved too well to imagine himself a glorious racehorse, and now he was condemned to toil without honour like a costermonger’s donkey.

   • 1913, Ford Madox Ford, chapter 7, in Mr. Fleight‎^[2], London: Howard Latimer, page 93:

     The twilight was still in the dusky skies; the walking took her nearly always over pieces of wrapping paper and banana peels, and the sawdust and detritus that fell from the costermongers’ stalls, lining all the roadways.

2. (British, originally) An apple-seller, usually itinerant and selling from a cart.

Synonyms

• fruiterer
• fruitmonger
• fruitseller

Derived terms

• coster
• costermongering
• costermongery

See also

• Appendix:Costermongers' back slang
• huckster, peddler

Further reading

• costermonger on Wikipedia.Wikipedia