1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7… (1911)
“ The word “monger” is common, in various forms, in Teutonic languages in the sense of trader or dealer, and appears in “iron-monger” and “fish-monger,” and with a derogatory significance of petty or underhand dealing in such words as “scandal-monger.” A “coster-monger,” or “coster,” originally, therefore, one who sold apples and fruit in the street, is now an itinerant dealer in fruit, vegetables or fish, but more particularly, as distinguished from a “hawker” on the one hand, and “general dealer” on the other, is a street trader in the above commodities who uses a barrow. ”
