“托儿”本是北京方言，出现在上世纪九十年代初，最初指的是商店或是路边小摊儿雇上一个或几个人，假装成顾客，作出种种姿态，引诱真正的顾客购买其产品——即指从旁诱人受骗上当的人。
那这个词的英语又怎么说呢？——shill，这个词的意思就是骗子，托儿（尤指假扮顾客诱使他人购物的人）。我们先来看一下词典中shill的解释：
Cambridge: someone who helps another person to persuade people to buy something,
especially by pretending to be a satisfied customer.
Collins: If you refer to someone as a shill, you mean that they are paid to sell something or to participate in an activity in order to persuade others to buy or participate.
两本词典的英文解释简单易懂，现在看一下例句：
1.He is tarnishing his reputation by being a shill for the tobacco industry
2.I used to be a shill in a Reno gambling club.
上面是关于“托儿”的英文解释。另外，shilling（shill+ing）在英语中是先令——英国和澳大利亚曾使用的银币或铜镍合金硬币——之意，请注意不要混淆。