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Fine Dictionary

bagman

ˈbægmən
WordNet
  1. (n) bagman
    a racketeer assigned to collect or distribute payoff money
  2. (n) bagman
    a salesman who travels to call on customers
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Bagman
    A commercial traveler; one employed to solicit orders for manufacturers and tradesmen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. (n) bagman
    One who carries a bag; especially, one who travels on horse back carrying samples or wares in saddle-bags: a name formerly given to commercial travelers, but now used only as a term of moderate contempt.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (ns) Bagman
    a familiar name for a commercial traveller
Etymology

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary M. E. bagge, perh. Scand.; not Celtic, as Diez suggests.

Usage in the news

Watergate ' Bagman ' Fred LaRue, 75, Dies. ashingtonpost.com

Will Montanans reject their bagman . hcn.org

"Only an amature does not use a bagman," according to a comment appended to a story in our on-line edition about the tribulations of former Mayor Ray Nagin. nola.com

Brother Bagman November 8, 2012 8:00 pm. kkfi.org

Usage in literature

He looked more than ever like a prosperous bagman. "The Moon and Sixpence" by W. Somerset Maugham

I had appeared out of the void at the Kyle, and I had made but a poor appearance as a bagman, showing no knowledge of my own trade. "Mr. Standfast" by John Buchan

Do you mean that the honorable gent, as you call him, will go out with a bagman? "The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh" by William Makepeace Thackeray

To be a bagman is to be humble, but not of necessity vulgar. "The Fitz-Boodle Papers" by William Makepeace Thackeray

A solitary bagman shared the meal, who revealed the fact that he was in the grocery line. "Huntingtower" by John Buchan

He regarded Bright and Cobden as displeasing mixtures of the bagman and the preacher. "The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3)" by John Morley

How, or why, or when, was this lymphatic bagman martyred? "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition" by Robert Louis Stevenson

They called us "bagman" for our last article, and we were sure they would. "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847" by Various

If it had been in my poor friend Denier's time, I might have suspected him of being a bagman. "The History of Sir Richard Calmady" by Lucas Malet

Their names go to fill the catalogue of the collection at home, of the gallery abroad, for the delectation of the bagman and the critic. "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" by James McNeill Whistler

Usage in poetry
LENORE was a Saracen maiden,
Brunette, statuesque,
The reverse of grotesque,
Her pa was a bagman from Aden,
Her mother she played in burlesque.
"To see a fond father employing
A deuce of a knout
For to bang her about,
To a sensitive lover's annoying."
Said the bagman, "Crusader, get out."