shill
Meanings
Plural: shills
Noun
- a decoy who acts as an enthusiastic customer in order to stimulate the participation of others
- A person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial.
- Any person enthusiastically endorsing a product; especially, one who is getting paid for the endorsement.
- An accomplice at a confidence trick during an auction or gambling game, such as an accomplice of the seller who bids to drive up the price.
- A house player in a casino.
Verb
- act as a shill
- "The shill bid for the expensive carpet during the auction in order to drive the price up"
- To promote or endorse in return for payment, especially dishonestly; sometimes extended sarcastically even to those not paid but strongly biased in favor.
- To put under cover; to sheal.
- To shell.
Origin / Etymology
Unknown; attested as verb 1914, as noun 1916. Perhaps an abbreviation of shillaber, attested 1913. The word entered English via carny, originally denoting a carnival worker who pretends to be a member of the audience in an attempt to elicit interest in an attraction.
Speculatively an extended form of German Schieber (“black marketeer, profiteer”) via *shi-la-ber.
There are some suggestions that it originates in the surname Shilaber or Shillibeer, especially George Shillibeer, but proposed origins are dubious as the word is first attested in North America in the 20th century, while proposed models are 19th century British.
American humorist Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–1890) was known to write under the name Mrs. Ruth Partington to lend credibility to some of his ideas. This is one more possible origin of the word, although there is no specific evidence supporting a connection.
Scrabble Score: 8
shill is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordshill is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
shill is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary