Shyster

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A shyster is someone who acts in a disreputable, unethical or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law and politics, or a con artist. While now applied in a non-ethnic-specific sense, the term has anti-semitic connotations.

[edit] Etymology

• The origin is most likely from German Scheißer - "incompetent worthless person," literally "defecator".[1][2]

• Other possible origins include Shylock, a character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and the owner of a stall or shy in a market place.

[edit] Common Misspellings

Shyster is commonly misspelled. Common variants include schister, scheister, sheister, schyster, shister, shaista, shiester and schiester.