托儿 (tuōr): shill

Meanings

1 shill
2 plant (a person secretly working for a vendor)
3 stooge
4 decoy

Characters

托

tuō

to support / to entrust / to prop up

儿

r

erhua suffix (Beijing colloquial diminutive)

Examples

那个拍卖会里有托儿，专门抬高价格。

Nàge pāimài huì lǐ yǒu tuōr, zhuānmén táigāo jiàgé.

There were shills at the auction specifically to drive up prices.

市场上的小贩常用托儿来吸引顾客。

Shìchǎng shàng de xiǎofàn cháng yòng tuōr lái xīyǐn gùkè.

Street vendors in the market often use plants to attract customers.

Tips

culture

托儿 is classic Beijing slang for a person secretly planted in a crowd to pose as an enthusiastic customer or bidder, boosting apparent demand. The term comes from 托 (to support/prop up) — the 'er' (儿) suffix marks it as colloquial Beijing speech. Compare 托 used alone in 托人 (to entrust someone).