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mountebank

- 7 dictionary results

moun⋅te⋅bank

  [moun-tuh-bangk]
Use mountebank in a Sentence
–noun
1. a person who sells quack medicines, as from a platform in public places, attracting and influencing an audience by tricks, storytelling, etc.
2. any charlatan or quack.
–verb (used without object)
3. to act or operate as a mountebank.
Origin:
1570–80; (< MF) < It montimbanco one who climbs on a bench, equiv. to mont(are) to climb (see mount 1 ) + -im-, var. of in on + banco bench (see bank 2 )

Related forms:
moun⋅te⋅bank⋅er⋅y  [moun-tuh-bangk-uh-ree] , noun

Synonyms:
1. pitchman. 2. phony, pretender, fraud.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To mountebank
moun·te·bank   (moun'tə-bāngk')   
n.  
  1. A hawker of quack medicines who attracts customers with stories, jokes, or tricks.
  2. A flamboyant charlatan.
v.   moun·te·banked, moun·te·bank·ing, moun·te·banks

v.   intr.
To act as a mountebank.
v.   tr. Archaic
To ensnare or prevail over with trickery.

[Italian montambanco, from the phrase monta im banco, one gets up onto the bench : monta, one gets up, third person sing. present tense of montare, to get up (from Vulgar Latin *montāre; see mount1) + in, on, onto (from Latin; see in-2) + banco, bench (variant of banca, from Old Italian, bench, table, from Old High German bank).]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Mountebank

Mount"e*bank\, n. [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.

Mountebank

Mount"e*bank\, v. t. To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull. [R.] --Shak.

Mountebank

Mount"e*bank\, v. i. To play the mountebank.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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mountebank 
"a doctor that mounts a bench in the market, and boasts his infallible remedies and cures" [Johnson], 1577, from It. montambanco, contraction of monta in banco "quack, juggler," lit. "mount on bench" (to be seen by crowd), from monta, imperative of montare "to mount" + banco, var. of banca "bench."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: moun·te·bank
Pronunciation: 'maunt-i-"ba[ng]k
Function: noun
: an itinerant hawker of pills and patent medicines especially from aplatform : QUACK mountebank —Shak.>
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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