quacksalver

American  

[kwak-sal-ver] / ˈkwækˌsæl vər /

noun

1. a quack doctor.

2. a charlatan.

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quacksalver British  

/ ˈkwækˌsælvə /

noun

1. an archaic word for quack 2

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Etymology

Origin of quacksalver

1570–80; < early Dutch (now kwakzalver ); quack ¹, salve ¹, -er ¹

Example Sentences

The BBC series Trust Me is the story of a "quacksalver" - a person who "dishonestly claims knowledge of, or skill in, medicine; a pedlar of false cures".

From BBC

The bolster wrapped round his nose and the two ends kissed behind his head, and his forehead resounded, and had he been Goliath, or Julius Cæsar, instead of an old quacksalver, down he had gone.

From Project Gutenberg

The answers were given with a solemn self-complacency, not unmixed with that shrewdness which was an essential attribute to the success of the ancient quacksalver.

From Project Gutenberg

Then about this time there had arisen a sudden quacksalver, a Panjandrum of philanthropy, a mummer of the market-place, who undertook, for a fixed sum, to abolish poverty and sin together; and many, pleased with the new gaudery, poured out before him the money that had gone to maintain hospitals and to feed proved charities.

From Project Gutenberg

To Johnson, a flatterer was a "claw-back"; a bad doctor, a "quacksalver."

From Time Magazine Archive