Other forms: hawkers
A hawker is a trader who sells goods by calling them out. A street hawker, hawkers at the gate, licensed hawker.
Calling out is the defining part — a hawker moves and shouts where a stallholder waits — and hawker licences were a real category of regulation in British towns. Hawker centres in Singapore are covered markets of food stalls and are a national institution. Note that the word is unrelated to the bird.
1nounhawkerA trader who sells goods by calling them out.
“Hawkers walked between the cars at the traffic lights, shouting and selling bottles of water.”
hawker is a trader.
Probably from Middle Low German hoker, a pedlar. Huckster comes from the same root, and the bird is unrelated.
Middle Low German
hoker
English, today
hawker
Probably Low German - or Dutch -, from Middle Low German hoker and ultimately from the root of huckster.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA