hooker-in

Definitions

A person hired to bring customers into a store.

archaic

Examples

“These gentlemen are Hookers-in; or, as they more euphoniously style themselves, Commercial Solicitors. Their employers are the country trade⟳ merchants of Manchester; their duty is to stand⟳ at the door of their respective warehouses "from morn till dewy eve," there to take⟳ forcible possession of each and every passenger who may have⟳ the outward semblance of a country draper, or other consumer of Manchester goods, and to drag⟳ him into the establishment whose interest⟳ they have⟳ the honour to represent⟳. […] Let⟳ it not be imagined that a hooker-in is a disreputable character—generally speaking he is quite the reverse.”

“[…] let⟳ us observe⟳ that the method of business at some of the second-rate houses is not always so straightforward. Many descend to the petty expedient of employing touters (hookers in, they are called), who frequent the railway stations and the coffee-rooms of inns, and hook in the unwary draper to their employers' dens. […] When the honest country draper meets with a hooker-in, when he is hooked by the button-hole on the railway platform, he had better beware.”

“Then arose, early in the nineteenth century, a curious class of independent salesmen known as "hookers-in." These were employed by the textile warehouses of manufacturers and merchants to bring⟳ in new customers”

CEFR level