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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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-monger

A dealer or trader.

[Old English mangere, based on Latin mango, dealer.]

A variety of terms exist for persons who sell goods, such as cheesemonger, costermonger (originally an apple seller, from costard, a large cooking apple), fishmonger, and ironmonger (in British usage, a seller of hardware such as tools and household implements, originally of iron). The term has broadened to refer to a person who promotes or disseminates something, often in a negative sense: newsmonger, scaremonger, scandalmonger, warmonger. The form is somewhat active, with words like fearmonger, powermonger, and smutmonger appearing in recent years, mainly in journalism.

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