mountebank

[ moun-tuh-bangk ]

noun

1. a person who sells quack medicines, as from a platform in public places, attracting and influencing an audience by tricks, storytelling, etc.

   Synonyms: pitchman

2. any charlatan or quack.

   Synonyms: fraud, pretender, phony

verb (used without object)

1. to act or operate as a mountebank.

mountebank

/ ˈmaʊntɪˌbæŋk /

noun

1. (formerly) a person who sold quack medicines in public places
2. a charlatan; fake

verb

1. intr to play the mountebank

Derived Forms

• ˌmounteˈbankery, noun

Other Words From

• moun·te·bank·er·y [moun, -t, uh, -bangk-, uh, -ree], noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of mountebank¹

1570–80; (< Middle French ) < Italian montimbanco one who climbs on a bench, equivalent to mont ( are ) to climb ( mount ¹ ) + -im-, variant of in on + banco bench ( bank ² )

Word History and Origins

Origin of mountebank¹

C16: from Italian montambanco a climber on a bench, from montare to mount ² + banco bench (see also bank ¹)

Example Sentences

Mencken described Bryan as “a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity.”

From Salon

“He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank . . .” But, unlike Bryan and Trump, Kissinger had a deep sense of purpose.

From Salon

Forget the Tinder swindler — how about the MI5 mountebank?

From New York Times

And part was rooted in a kind of self-education — an exploration of how Ricky Potash, unhappy child in Elizabeth, N.J., became Ricky Jay, “The Scholar Mountebank,” as the playwright David Mamet, his close friend, once described him.

From New York Times

Was it not a dangerous word, too closely connected to Hobbes and to dubious stories about sympathetic magic told by Digby—someone whom John Evelyn, another early member, could dismiss as an arrant mountebank?

From Literature