noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A con man who tries to deceive members of the public. archaic

   "[…] M was a Magsman, frequenting Pall-Mall; / N was a Nose that turned chirp on his pal; […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms

con artistconfidence trickstergriftermountebanksnake oil salesmansneak

Example

More examples

"[…] M was a Magsman, frequenting Pall-Mall; / N was a Nose that turned chirp on his pal; […]"

Etymology

From mag + -s- + man, of unclear origin. It has been suggested that mag was dialect for halfpenny or for prattle.

Related phrases

con man

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.