A monger was originally a dealer in some commodity and we still have a few common words with that meaning today, such as fishmongers, ironmongers, cheesemongers and costermongers. But at one time there were many more. Here are some Copilot found, now all obsolete. With the exception of fellmonger, a dealer in animal skins, they are all self-explanatory:
The word has been with us since Old English and was from an early Germanic word mangan, 'monger', a borrowing from Latin mango, 'dealer'. It's been suggested this may have come from Greek μαγγανεύω (manganeuo), which meant something like 'dress up, charm, bewitch', the semantic link implied being that traders try to display their wares to the best advantage. But there are other suggestions and the further etymology is uncertain.
But starting from early Modern English monger acquired negative overtones. Tyndale's Bible translation use whoremonger and the trend accelerated in the 18c and 19c, with scandalmongersscaremongers and rumourmongers, all still with us today.
Now we have hatemonger, fearmonger, warmonger, gossipmonger, and dozens more recent ones, often with implication of being obsessed with something (fashionmonger, powermonger) or of flooding the market with something (hashtagemonger, mememonger). But we also have a few gently humorous examples such as petmonger, and the (I assume ironic) truthmonger.
Since the suffix -monger is so richly productive you can just coin your own; for example I just invented rockmonger, 'obsessive geologist', and gagmonger, 'spreader of jokes'. I rather like these, but I would, wouldn't I? Because I am a mongermonger.
Met Any Good Mongers Lately?
A monger was originally a dealer in some commodity and we still have a few common words with that meaning today, such as fishmongers, ironmongers, cheesemongers and costermongers. But at one time there were many more. Here are some Copilot found, now all obsolete. With the exception of fellmonger, a dealer in animal skins, they are all self-explanatory:
Gemini found a few more:
The word has been with us since Old English and was from an early Germanic word mangan, 'monger', a borrowing from Latin mango, 'dealer'. It's been suggested this may have come from Greek μαγγανεύω (manganeuo), which meant something like 'dress up, charm, bewitch', the semantic link implied being that traders try to display their wares to the best advantage. But there are other suggestions and the further etymology is uncertain.
But starting from early Modern English monger acquired negative overtones. Tyndale's Bible translation use whoremonger and the trend accelerated in the 18c and 19c, with scandalmongers scaremongers and rumourmongers, all still with us today.
Now we have hatemonger, fearmonger, warmonger, gossipmonger, and dozens more recent ones, often with implication of being obsessed with something (fashionmonger, powermonger) or of flooding the market with something (hashtagemonger, mememonger). But we also have a few gently humorous examples such as petmonger, and the (I assume ironic) truthmonger.
Since the suffix -monger is so richly productive you can just coin your own; for example I just invented rockmonger, 'obsessive geologist', and gagmonger, 'spreader of jokes'. I rather like these, but I would, wouldn't I? Because I am a mongermonger.