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Glite Dictionary
to hire a shill

to hire a shill

9.8
Pay someone to post fake positive reviews about something
  • phrasal verb
  • Offensive
translation icon : contratar a alguien para que haga reseñas falsas
  • The company decided to hire a shill to post fake reviews about their product.

Examples

  • Unscrupulous businesses sometimes hire a shill to sway public opinion online.

  • She refused to hire a shill, believing honest advertising was more effective.

  • Don't hire a shill for your campaign!

  • The company decided to hire a shill to boost sales.

  • The company decided to hire a shill to post fake reviews about their product.

  • Unscrupulous businesses sometimes hire a shill to sway public opinion online.

  • She refused to hire a shill, believing honest advertising was more effective.

Antonyms

to fire
∞ 2.8

To officially make someone leave their job

Surface Forms

hire a shill infinitive
hired a shill past
hired a shill past participle
hiring a shill present participle
hires a shill third person singular

Morphology

hire + a + shill

The meaning is compositionally derivable: 'hire' (to employ) plus 'shill' (a person pretending to be a genuine customer/promoter) yields 'employ someone to act as a deceptive promoter'. While 'shill' is somewhat low-frequency jargon and may be unknown to many learners, if a B1 learner does know both constituents the overall meaning is directly inferable.

Etymology

The phrase hire a shill comes from shows and markets where a paid helper, the shill, pretended to be a happy customer and loudly praised the seller to make others buy. So, hire a shill now means 'to employ someone to give fake praise or biased positive comments'.