MOUNTEBANK

mountebank, charlatan

(noun) a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Etymology

Noun

mountebank (plural mountebanks)

One who sells dubious medicines.

One who sells by deception; a con artist; a charlatan.

(obsolete) An acrobat.

Verb

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

(intransitive) To act as a mountebank.

(transitive) To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.

Source: Wiktionary

Mount"e*bank, n. Etym: [It. montimbanco, montambanco; montare to mount + in in, upon + banco bench. See Mount, and 4th Bank.]

1. One who mounts a bench or stage in the market or other public place, boasts of his skill in curing diseases, and vends medicines which he pretends are infalliable remedies; a quack doctor. Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a mountebank ... is preferred before an able physician. Whitlock.

2. Any boastful or false pretender; a charlatan; a quack. Nothing so impossible in nature but mountebanks will undertake. Arbuthnot.

Mount"e*bank, v. t.

Definition: To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull. [R.] Shak.

Mount"e*bank, v. i.

Definition: To play the mountebank.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition