mountebank

American  

[moun-tuh-bangk] / ˈmaʊn təˌbæŋk /

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 British  

/ ˈmaʊntɪˌbæŋk /

noun

1. (formerly) a person who sold quack medicines in public places

2. a charlatan; fake

---

verb

1. (intr) to play the mountebank

Other Word Forms

• mountebankery
  noun

Etymology

Origin of mountebank

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

Explanation

A mountebank has a talent for tricking people into buying things, like the mountebank who charms women into buying "magic beauty pills" for hundreds of dollars, though they are just ordinary vitamins you can buy anywhere. Mountebank, pronounced "MOUN-tih-bank," has an interesting origin, in the Italian phrase "monta in banco." It describes a "doctor" who would "mount a bench" in the marketplace. Standing a bit higher than the crowd enabled people to hear his sales pitch and see the potions and powders he claimed were medical cures that never failed — claims as bogus as his credentials. A mountebank is a fast-talking crook pretending to be an expert.

Example Sentences

Mountebank that he is, Maelzel desperately wishes that the Turk could be a total machine, one that he could control completely.

From Time Magazine Archive

Mountebank pride never found a place in our family: we have sought for happiness, not for vain connections, and Czipra belongs to those girls whom women love even better than men.

From Debts of Honor by Yolland, Arthur B. (Arthur Battishill)

The Mountebank grunts away at first, and calls forth the greatest clapping and applause.

From Children's Literature A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes by Clippinger, Erle Elsworth

The Count might possibly come back from the country before the elections, and then, the Mountebank began to love her.

From The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2 by Maupassant, Guy de

About twenty Paces from the Preacher was a Mountebank, who, by the comical Jests and Actions of his Merry-Andrew, drew a much greater Audience to him than the Jesuit had.

From The Memoirs of Charles-Lewis, Baron de Pollnitz, Volume II Being the Observations He Made in His Late Travels From Prussia thro' Germany, Italy, France, Flanders, Holland, England, &C. in Letters to His Friend. Discovering Not Only the Present State of the Chief Cities and Towns; but the Characters of the Principal Persons at the Several Courts. by P?llnitz, Karl Ludwig von