Contextualizebeta

wheeler-dealer

noun

Etymology

From wheel and deal, equivalent to wheel + -er + deal + -er.

  1. inherited from *dʰail-✻
  2. inherited from *dailijaną✻ — “to divide, part, deal”
  3. inherited from *dailijan✻
  4. inherited from dǣlan — “to divide, part”
  5. inherited from delen
  6. formed as wheeler-dealer — “wheel + -er + deal + -er”

Definitions

  1. A shrewd political or commercial schemer, especially one who is unscrupulous

    A shrewd political or commercial schemer, especially one who is unscrupulous; a hustler; a shady operator.

    • Seated at separate tables to underscore their differing levels of involvement with indicted savings and loan wheeler-dealer Charles Keating, the five were fighting to regain reputations earned in a lifetime of public service.
    • It is illegal to buy and sell this sort of item, he says, but not necessarily illegal to buy and sell the containers that they happen to come in. What an unexpected wheeler dealer.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for wheeler-dealer. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA