bagman
bagman — noun
- bagmansingular
- bagmansplural
1. a person who handles cash that came from criminal activity, picking it up from o
a person who handles cash that came from criminal activity, picking it up from one party and passing it to another so that the person running the operation never has to touch the money directly.
The police arrested the gang's bagman as he walked out of the casino with a duffel bag full of cash.
collocation: gang's bagman / mob's bagman
Baraka worked as a bagman for a construction company, delivering envelopes of cash to city officials.
pattern: work as a bagman for [organisation]
Investigators traced the payments through three different bagmen before reaching the senator's office.
The trial revealed that the mayor's cousin had been the main bagman for the kickback scheme.
In the movie, the mob boss never touches the money — he sends a bagman to collect it instead.
- money courier
more neutral and broader; a bagman is a specific type of illegal money courier for a criminal operation
- go-between
wider in scope — covers any intermediary, not just money; bagman is specifically about cash
- intermediary
formal; bagman is informal and criminal-specific
- front man
close synonym but front man can also refer to someone who hides a business's true ownership, not just money collection
文法句型
work as a bagman (for [someone])
act as a bagman
用法筆記
Almost always used in the context of organised crime, political corruption, or illegal gambling. The word carries a strong negative judgment and is never neutral.
常見錯誤
2. a salesperson who travels from place to place to visit customers and sell goods,
a salesperson who travels from place to place to visit customers and sell goods, especially in rural or remote areas where there are no shops — a term that was common in the early-to-mid 20th century before large retail chains expanded.
Eli's grandfather was a bagman who drove a Model-T Ford across three states selling kitchen supplies.
register: dated — common in early-to-mid 20th C
In the 1940s, a good bagman could make a living visiting farms and small towns with a suitcase of samples.
pattern: a bagman + selling / visiting customers
The company employed a team of bagmen to cover the rural districts that had no general stores.
My great-aunt remembers ordering cloth from a bagman who stopped by her farmhouse every spring.
- traveling salesperson
modern, gender-neutral equivalent
- traveling salesman
the older masculine form, also dated but more widely known
- commercial traveler
British term, even more dated
- field sales representative
formal, current business terminology
文法句型
work as a bagman
用法筆記
This sense is now old-fashioned. In modern English, 'traveling salesperson', 'sales rep', or 'field sales representative' are used instead. The word survives mainly in historical writing or nostalgic accounts of early 20th-century commerce.