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 ); see quack ¹, salve ¹, -er ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

quacksalver

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

From Time Magazine Archive

I have only to add that the union of the poisoner, the quacksalver, the alchemist, and the astrologer in the same person was familiar to the pretenders to the mystic sciences.

From Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott

I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quacksalver.

From The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) by A. H. (Arthur Henry) Bullen

"In other words," said Tressilian, "he was a quacksalver and common cheat; but what has all this to do with my nag, and the shoe which he has lost?"

From Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott

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 The Cloister and the Hearth A Tale of the Middle Ages by Charles Reade

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