Etymology Clipping of carnival + -y (“diminutive, hypocoristic suffix”).
1
Informal A person who works in a carnival (often one who uses exaggerated showmanship or fraud).
The Reverend Foster, self-ordained—or directly ordained by God, depending on authority cited—had an instinct for the pulse of his times stronger than that of a skilled carnie sizing up a mark.1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC, page 276:
Bart spies an opportunity to make a quick buck so he channels his inner carny and posits his sinking house as a natural wonder of the world and its inhabitants as freaks, barking to dazzled spectators, “Behold the horrors of the Slanty Shanty! See the twisted creatures that dwell within! Meet Cue-Ball, the man with no hair!”2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:
The crossing at St. Martin’s Church was mine fust of all; and when the other lads come to it I didn’t take no heed of ’em—only for that I’d have been a bright boy by now, but they carnied me over like; for when I tried to turn ’em off they’d say, in a carnying way, ‘Oh, let us stay on,’ so I never took no heed of ’em.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861: