How to Use traveling salesman in a Sentence

traveling salesman

noun
  • Jules was working as a traveling salesman in Turin when his son was born.
    — Jed Perl, The New York Review of Books, 14 May 2020
  • Miller’s traveling salesman is here something of a sad clown running out of gas.
    — Naveen Kumar, Variety, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Mandelbaum is a traveling salesman who has been out of town for a couple of weeks.
    — Caren Schnur Neile, Sun Sentinel, 3 Jan. 2023
  • Gustorf was a traveling salesman and built the home as a tourist attraction.
    — Lainey Seyler, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 27 Mar. 2018
  • His father, John, was a traveling salesman who dealt in hardware and tires.
    — Fortune, 3 Feb. 2020
  • The traveling salesman must therefore travel on these roads no matter what.
    — Heinrich Hemme, Scientific American, 20 June 2024
  • Because of her mother’s dalliances with a shady traveling salesman selling a bright green elixir, her baby is born green.
    — David Lyman, Cincinnati.com, 16 Sep. 2017
  • Worn out from his life on the road as a traveling salesman, the barely awake Gregor Samsa thinks he’s caught a bug.
    — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 26 Jan. 2018
  • His father was a traveling salesman and a mechanic, and his mother was a homemaker.
    — New York Times, 3 Feb. 2020
  • The famous play Death of a Salesman explores the moral dilemmas of a traveling salesman.
    — John Horgan, Scientific American, 3 Sep. 2021
  • The idea of the book is that a traveling salesman named Signor Bianchi calls home every night to tell his daughter a story.
    — Meghan Cox Gurdon, WSJ, 9 Oct. 2020
  • Dennis Weaver is a traveling salesman in the Mojave Desert who passes a tanker truck.
    — Christopher Borrelli, chicagotribune.com, 24 Mar. 2022
  • And the road rage is palpable and knuckle-clenching as a traveling salesman tries to avoid getting run off the road and killed by a vengeful big rig driver.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 9 June 2021
  • As a traveling salesman, trying to improve his own diet was another story.
    — Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 1 Jan. 2026
  • This Professor Hill seems less a traveling salesman than a song-and-dance man on a second-class national tour.
    — Washington Post, 11 Feb. 2022
  • But finding the shortest traveling salesman route among many different cities is more than just an academic exercise.
    — Jeremy Hsu, IEEE Spectrum, 20 Oct. 2016
  • The supercomputer is able to solve a traveling salesman problem by comparing the length of all of the possible routes and choosing the shortest.
    — Jennifer Welsh, Discover Magazine, 28 Oct. 2010
  • With the assurance of a traveling salesman, DJ leaned across the airplane seat and helped his cousin Hunter, who was 8, click the seatbelt in place.
    — Sam Dolnick, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2022
  • Jacobson declared bankruptcy in 1925, and the debt followed him in his career as a traveling salesman.
    — Timothy Bella, Washington Post, 17 Oct. 2023
  • His father, also named Frederick, was a traveling salesman who died when the twins were 13, The Telegraph said.
    — New York Times, 15 Jan. 2021
  • His father, Ernest, was a traveling salesman, and his mother, Norah (Lawless) Kemp, managed the home.
    — Clay Risen, New York Times, 29 May 2024
  • Derby Dinner Playhouse presents this classic musical about a traveling salesman who comes to a small town with a plan to sell the town folk on the idea of organizing a boy band.
    — Gege Reed, The Courier-Journal, 2 Aug. 2017
  • Thus, the idea of the traveling salesman Hill swindling the locals into investing in a boys’ marching band, with the intent of skipping town before teaching them a note, held up as well.
    — Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 29 June 2022
  • During the younger Billy's high school years, the traveling salesman's star began to rise and Billy III found humor and pride in it.
    — Erica Marrison, PEOPLE, 30 June 2026
  • The story starts with a man in the wrong key, out of tune with the real world, loading up his traveling salesman’s car every morning, lying on a motel bed every night, watching TV.
    — Jeanette Winterson, New York Times, 3 Sep. 2019
  • It is named after Edward Dilworth Latta, a traveling salesman who opened a clothing store in 1876.
    — Chase Jordan march 30, Charlotte Observer, 30 Mar. 2026
  • Yankovic's dad never went so far as to smash his beloved accordion, but the musician really did acquire said accordion from a traveling salesman, like the one played by Thomas Lennon in the film.
    — Christian Holub, EW.com, 7 Nov. 2022
  • Optimization encompasses far more than the traveling salesman problem.
    — Peter McMahon, IEEE Spectrum, 27 Nov. 2018
  • Another legend is that of The Leatherman, who is embodied in Brownell’s story as a traveling salesman of French descent.
    — Susan Dunne, Hartford Courant, 21 Apr. 2022
  • Back in 1896, Jacob Frank decided to end his career as a traveling salesman and go into business in Cincinnati.
    — Jeff Suess, The Enquirer, 2 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'traveling salesman.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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