Brand's face took on a hucksterish look of caution.

But it is difficult to recall them in the aftermath of the exhausting, hucksterish din.

True, Ms. Keene explained, but he was also a hucksterish dandy who did not mind a few good times.

At its very best, his language can recall the hucksterish high energy of a Stanley Elkin sentence.

Professionals in the field of forecasting will talk cautiously about reducing uncertainty, while predictions suggest the hucksterish world of crystal balls, soothsayers and shamans.

Tim Meadows has also appeared on the show as P.K. Winsome, a black Republican and hucksterish entrepreneur.

But it is an aptly hucksterish sentiment for the defense of the carnival sideshow, which is the enterprise to which Mr. Robbins devotes considerable energy.

"Here's a guy who preaches the Bible and doesn't do it in this hucksterish way," Mr. Montroy said of Mr. Keyes.

Mr. Cook's Teddy, a bold, hucksterish showman who once managed a bagpipe-playing whippet named Rob Roy, at first comes across as a welcome figure of comic relief.

Even Mr. Gitter, an actor-turned-developer who wears a cowboy hat and ponytail, seemed happy to poke fun at his hucksterish image, promoting himself as "the P.T. Barnum of the Catskills."

While Agassi viewed the music as a hucksterish intrusion that further estranged fans from the players, the German's chief complaint was that the tour didn't give its players the option of refusing the change-over serenades.

But it is an aptly hucksterish sentiment for the defense of the carnival sideshow, a vanishing American entertainment form that includes freak displays, cheap tricks and minor swindles, as well as sword swallowing, fire eating and other feats that do, literally, defy death.

Because of Barnum's hucksterish reputation, Philip Jr., former managing editor of Life magazine, said that he had at first resisted doing the miniseries and an accompanying book, then realized that Barnum was "a true original and innovator," leaving his mark on American culture.

Frankie Aragon, the unctuous M.C. (P. J. Benjamin), a satanic variation on Gig Young's character in "They Shoot Horses," struggles to keep audience interest up with hucksterish patter about the contest, "where dreams are made and broken."

As for a sponsored parade feeding attitudes that the Super Bowl is infused with hucksterish hoopla to the point of oversaturation, Mr. Kresch said: "When a sponsor's float goes by and it's beautiful and engaging, you get people's attention in a wonderfully relaxed, positive way.

She is an heiress, but her fortune is tied up in endless litigation, much to the disgust of her glib, hucksterish husband, a public-relations agent who is helping his only client, Reverend Ude, a tele-vision preacher, to develop an evangelical movement in Africa.

Mr. Alagna's version is nuanced differently: he plays up the desperation of his love for Adina more melodramatically and borrows a strand of Papageno's DNA to create the endearing empty-headedness that makes Nemorino so vulnerable to Dulcamara's hucksterish wiles.

The plan Presley and his hucksterish business manager, Thomas Parker (a k a the Colonel), had agreed to - and then sold to the Army - went like this: In the interests of military esprit de corps and public morale back home, Presley would go about things like any draftee.