wheeler-dealern.

1960 H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 574/2 Wheeler-dealer..one who wheels and deals; an adroit, quick-witted, scheming person; a person with many business or social interests.

1963 Economist 24 Aug. 666/1 Two Dallas oil millionaires,..described as ‘a pair of old-line Texas wheeler-dealers’.

1968 G. Wyckoff Image Candidates iii. 20 Ted had been known as the Wheeler-Dealer because he always had important phone calls to make from his hotel room when we arrived on location.

1973 Guardian 23 Mar. 15/3 Old-style American corruption of the wheeler-dealer variety.

1978 L. Heren Growing up on The Times ix. 301 He [sc. Lyndon Johnson] was a shop-soiled old politico, a wheeler dealer, and past master of consensus politics.

1968 N.Y. Times 1 Feb. 42 Wondering what wheeler-dealing was going on over telephone lines among the various managements.

1976 Listener 5 Feb. 135/3 To ensure that..councils (or the community) got the upper hand in any wheeler-dealing between councils and developers.

1979 Daily Tel. 27 Apr. 36/6 Mr Prior also stressed that voting liberal could mean another ‘hung’ Parliament which would mean more ‘wheeler dealing’ at Westminster.

1984 Listener 22 Mar. 4/1 It is here in the intricate wheeler-dealing of the Common Market, the Atlantic alliance and international trade and finance that the ‘diplomatic’ reputations of the future will be made.