shill
/ʃɪl/
shill noun: a person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial.
Noun
shill (plural shills)
- A person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial.
- carnival barkers and their shills, fleecing the rubes
- Witnesses have testified that Jim Jones (like a few other professional faith-healers) used shills part of the time […]1983, Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising
- Synonyms:
- shiller
- Any person enthusiastically endorsing a product; especially, one who is getting paid for the endorsement.
- On the screen, there was that quack again, playing the shill for yet another drug company.
- kill yourself ai shill and stop fucking spamming the catalog2023 March 15, anonymous author, 4chan, /ic/
- An accomplice at a confidence trick during an auction or gambling game, such as an accomplice of the seller who bids to drive up the price.
- Near-synonyms: inside man, potted plant (contextually synonymous)
- Sniping is necessary because if you bid before the last minute it just gives the shills more time to screw you over.
- Synonyms:
- inside man, potted plant
- A house player in a casino.
- There may even be a casino shill sitting adjacent to you. Normally, the casino shills are gorgeous women, and sometimes men, so enjoy the scenery.2000, Dennis R. Harrison, Casino Gambling: Your Absolute, Quintessential, All You Wanted to Know ...
- Synonyms:
- stick
Verb (1)
shill (third-person singular simple present shills, present participle shilling, simple past and past participle shilled)
- To promote or endorse in return for payment, especially dishonestly; sometimes extended sarcastically even to those not paid but strongly biased in favor.
- That contractor seems to be shilling for a certain brand of building materials.
- That contractor seems to be shilling that specific epoxy.
Verb (2)
shill (third-person singular simple present shills, present participle shilling, simple past and past participle shilled)
- To put under cover; to sheal.
Verb (3)
shill (third-person singular simple present shills, present participle shilling, simple past and past participle shilled)
- To shell.
Proper noun capitalized: Shill
Shill (plural Shills)
- A surname.
shill meaning in Thai
shill in Thai
- a person paid to endorse a product favourably
- หน้าม้า nâa-máa
- an accomplice at a confidence trick
- หน้าม้า nâa-máa
Examples of shill in a sentence
- No one but the most delusional sony shill thinks killzone is good. so probably most people on this board2025 March 21, anonymous author, 4chan, /vr/:
- Meanwhile, an influence operation by Iranian shill accounts began amplifying commentary critical of the war almost immediately after the first US strikes on Iran.2026 March 31, George Chidi, “Chatter and fear about US military draft emerge as Trump’s Iran war drags on”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- The pitchman swept his cane in a slow acceleration over the heads of the crowd and then suddenly pointed the silver cap toward Billy and the shill.1994, Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing (The Border Trilogy; 2), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →ISBN:
- When a likely customer walks by, one of the shills says something like, “You've got to play this game.2009, Michael Benson, Cons and Frauds, Infobase, →ISBN, page 21:
Synonyms of shill
Forms of shill
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shills |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shills |
| present participle | shilling |
| past participle | shilled |
| past | shilled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Shills |
Origin of shill
Unknown; attested as verb 1914, as noun 1916. Perhaps an abbreviation of shillaber, attested 1913. The word entered English via carny, originally denoting a carnival worker who pretends to be a member of the audience in an attempt to elicit interest in an attraction. Speculatively an extended form of German Schieber (“black marketeer, profiteer”) via *shi-la-ber. There are some suggestions that it originates in the surname Shilaber or Shillibeer, especially George Shillibeer, but proposed origins are dubious as the word is first attested in North America in the 20th century, while proposed models are 19th century British. American humorist Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber (1814–1890) was known to write under the name Mrs. Ruth Partington to lend credibility to some of his ideas. This is one more possible origin of the word, although there is no specific evidence supporting a connection.
Unexplained.
Words formed from shill
Words that rhyme with shill
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- chill
- drill
- Seville
- will
- skill
- still
- frill
- mil
- sill
- swill
- fulfill
- goodwill
- till
- until
- brazil
- downhill
- prill
- quadrille
- shrill
- thrill
- Chapel Hill
- jill
- McGill
- nill
- squill
- trill
- uphill
- Walton-on-the-Hill
- Baskerville
- dill
- grille
- he'll
- instill
- Ithkuil
- krill
- manille
- nil
- phil
- purple pill
- refill
- remill
- rill
- thill
- twill
- vill
- vril
- 'til
- 'twill
Questions about shill
- What does shill mean?
- Shill means a person paid to endorse a product while pretending to be impartial.
- What is shill in Thai?
- Shill in Thai is หน้าม้า (nâa-máa). See Shill meaning in Thai.
- How do you use shill in a sentence?
- No one but the most delusional sony shill thinks killzone is good. so probably most people on this board
- What part of speech is shill?
- Shill can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce shill?
- Shill is pronounced /ʃɪl/.
- What is the plural of shill?
- The plural of shill is shills.
Words near shill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shill (page history and authors); Shill (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shill.ogg, en-au-shill.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.