Shyster
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Someone who acts in a disreputable, unethical, or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law and politics.
"True, it was a good advertisement at Boosters' Club lunches, and all the varieties of Annual Banquets to which Good Fellows were invited, to speak sonorously of […] a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker, and a fly-by-night."
- 2 a person (especially a lawyer or politician) who uses unscrupulous or unethical methods wordnet
- 1 To act in a disreputable, unethical, or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law and politics. intransitive
- 2 To exploit (someone or something) in this way. transitive
Example
More examples"True, it was a good advertisement at Boosters' Club lunches, and all the varieties of Annual Banquets to which Good Fellows were invited, to speak sonorously of […] a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker, and a fly-by-night."
Etymology
US origin, 19th century. The etymology of the word is not generally agreed upon. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "of obscure origin," possibly deriving from a historical sense of shy meaning "disreputable", equivalent to shy + -ster. Other sources suggest the word derives from the German Scheißer (“incompetent worthless person”), from scheißen (“to defecate”), probably influenced by -ster. Not related to shylock.
More for "shyster"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.