charlatan
Syllables: char·la·tanUK/ˈʃɑːlətən/US/ˈʃɑɹlətən/
charlatan noun: a mountebank, someone who addresses crowds in the street; (especially), an itinerant seller of medicines or drugs.
Noun
charlatan (plural charlatans)
- A mountebank, someone who addresses crowds in the street; (especially), an itinerant seller of medicines or drugs.
- The poor foreigner, more dead than alive, answered that he was an Italian charlatan, who had practised with some reputation in Padua […].1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
- A malicious trickster; a fake person, especially one who deceives for personal profit.
- “If there’s something you don’t understand,” urged Dr. Breed, “ask Dr. Horvath to explain it. He’s very good at explaining.” He turned to me. “Dr. Hoenikker used to say that any scientist who couldn’t explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan.”
- “Then I’m dumber than an eight-year-old,” Miss Pefko mourned. “I don’t even know what a charlatan is.”1963 March 18, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., chapter 15, in Cat’s Cradle
- Synonyms:
- trickster, swindler, scammer, bamboozler, bouncer, bullshitter, cheat, cheater, cogger, cony-catcher
charlatan meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
charlatan in Hindi
- malicious trickster
- कपटी kapṭī, ढोंगी ḍhoṅgī
charlatan in Tamil
- பாலி மருத்துவன், பயிலா மருத்துவர், மருத்துவம்
charlatan in Bengali
- হাতুড়ে, ভণ্ড
charlatan in Malayalam
- fraud, quack, mounte-bank
- കപടവേഷധാരി, കള്ളവെെദ്യൻ, പൊട്ടവെെദ്യൻ, മുറിവെെദ്യൻ, കപടവേഷക്കാരൻ, ഡമാലഗുഡൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- charlatan in Kannada
- ಹುಸಿಯರಿಗ, ಪಂಡಿತನಂತೆ ತೋರ್ಪಡಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವವನು, ಕಪಟ ಪಂಡಿತ, ಸೋಗು ವೈದ್ಯ
- charlatan in Arabic
- دَجَّال dajjāl
- charlatan in Indonesian
- penipu, dukun
- charlatan in Persian
- شارلاتان šârlâtân
Examples of charlatan in a sentence
- I said rhubarb, rhubarb to oblige her, but I felt like a charlatan.
- I think we have learned to beware of these political charlatans.
- Only an idiot or a charlatan would attempt anything of auguristic nature at this moment.
Synonyms of charlatan
21 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of charlatan
| plural | charlatans |
|---|
Origin of charlatan
From Middle French charlatan, from Old Italian ciarlatano (“quack”), a blend of ciarlatore (“chatterer”) + cerretano (“hawker, quack”, literally “native of Cerreto”) (Cerreto di Spoleto being a village in Umbria, known for its quacks).
Words formed from charlatan
Questions about charlatan
- What does charlatan mean?
- Charlatan means a mountebank, someone who addresses crowds in the street; (especially), an itinerant seller of medicines or drugs.
- What is charlatan in Hindi?
- Charlatan in Hindi is कपटी (kapṭī), ढोंगी (ḍhoṅgī). See Charlatan meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is charlatan?
- Charlatan is a noun.
- How do you pronounce charlatan?
- Charlatan is pronounced /ˈʃɑɹlətən/ (US).
- What is the plural of charlatan?
- The plural of charlatan is charlatans.
Words near charlatan in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: charlatan (page history and authors); charlatan (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); charlatan (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); charlatan (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); charlatan (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-ca-charlatan.oga.
Cite this entry: “charlatan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/charlatan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.