British dated term for a travelling salesman — someone who criss-crossed the country by train or car, case of samples in hand, charming shop owners and buyers into placing orders. The phrase carries a vaguely Dickensian atmosphere of smoky railway carriages and dodgy boarding-house dinners. While the job still exists under flashier titles like 'field sales rep', commercial traveller belongs to an earlier, more buttoned-up era of British commerce.
My grandfather spent thirty years as a commercial traveller, covering the whole of the Midlands for a textile firm.
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(British, dated) Travelling salesman.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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