The Collaborative International Dictionary
Penny-a-liner \Pen"ny-a-lin"er\, n.
One who furnishes matter to public journals at so much a
line; a poor writer for hire; a hack writer.
--Thackeray.
Wiktionary
n. (context derogatory dated English) One who supplies writing to public journals for a set fee per line of text; a poor writer for hire; a hack.
Usage examples of "penny-a-liner".
The basest of newspaper scribblers, penny-a-liners out of the gutters, bar-room oracles, unfrocked monks and priests, the refuse of the literary guild, of the bar, and of the clergy, carpenters, turners, grocers, locksmiths, shoemakers, common laborers, many with no profession at all, strolling politicians and [22]public brawlers, who, like the sellers of counterfeit wares, have speculated for the past three years on popular credulity.
Homais by this hour knew it almost by heart, and he repeated it from end to end, with the reflections of the penny-a-liners, and all the stories of individual catastrophes that had occurred in France or abroad.