mountebank

English

WOTD – 11 October 2006

Etymology

From Italian montambanco (“quack who mounts a bench to hawk his wares”) contracted from monta-in-banco (“mount on bench”).

Pietro Longhi: The Charlatan, 1757

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmaʊntəˌbæŋk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

mountebank (plural mountebanks)

1. One who sells dubious medicines.
   • John Bull

     There is nothing so impossible in Nature but mountebanks will undertake; nothing so incredible but they will affirm.

2. One who sells by deception; a con artist; a charlatan.
   • 1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part III: “The Mayors”, chapter 7, page 106, ¶ 13

     “Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the imagination devised to——”

3. (obsolete) An acrobat.

Quotations

* For quotations using this term, see Citations:mountebank.

Translations

charlatan

• Greek:

  Ancient: ὀχλαγωγός m (okhlagōgós)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• patent medicine
• snake oil
• quack

Verb

mountebank (third-person singular simple present mountebanks, present participle mountebanking, simple past and past participle mountebanked)

1. (intransitive) To act as a mountebank.
2. (transitive) To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.

   Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
   Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved - Coriolanus, Wm. Shakespeare

Derived terms

• mountebankery