mountebank
/ˈmaʊntəˌbæŋk/
mountebank noun: one who sells dubious medicines.
Noun
mountebank (plural mountebanks)
- One who sells dubious medicines.
- She is abus'd, ſtolne from me, and corrupted / By Spels, and Medicines, bought of Mountebanksc. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- There is nothing ſo impoſſible in Nature, but Mountebanks vvill undertake; nothing ſo incredible but they vvill affirm: Mrs. Bull’s Condition vvas look’d upon as deſperate by all the Men of Art; then Signior Cavallo judged it vvas high time for him to interpoſe, he bragg’d that he had an infallible...1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “How Signior Cavallo, an Italian Quack, Undertook to Cure Mrs. Bull of Her Ulcer”, in Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], London: […] John Morphew...
- One who sells by deception; a con artist.
- Donne was a mountebank who wrapped up his lack of meaning in hard words.1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Orlando: A Biography, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, page 83
- Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the imagination devised to——1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part III: “The Mayors”, chapter 7, page 106, ¶ 13
- Synonyms:
- charlatan, conman, fake, quack, bristler, bunco artist, bunco-steerer, chiseler, con artist, confidence artist
- Any boastful, false pretender.
- They ſay this towne is full of coſenage: / As nimble Iuglers that deceiue the eie: / Darke working Sorcerers that change the minde: / Soule-killing Witches that deforme the bodie: / Diſguiſed Cheaters, prating Mountebankes, / And manie ſuch like liberties of ſinne:c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- As if Divinity had catch'd / The Itch, of purpose to be scratch'd; / Or, like a Mountebank, did wound / And stab her self with doubts profound, / Only to shew with how small pain / The sores of faith are cur'd again […]1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished...
- An acrobat.
Verb
mountebank (third-person singular simple present mountebanks, present participle mountebanking, simple past and past participle mountebanked)
- To act as a mountebank.
- To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.
- Ile Mountebanke their Loues, / Cogge their Hearts from them,c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
mountebank meaning in Urdu, Malayalam and Arabic
mountebank in Urdu
- عطائی, فریبی, نیم حکیم
mountebank in Malayalam
- charlatan, swindler, confidence trickster
- മുറിവെെദ്യൻ, വെെദ്യവേഷധാരി, കള്ളവെെദ്യൻ, കപടവേഷധാരി, ലിംഗി, ഡമാലഗുഡൻ
mountebank in Arabic
- charlatan
- دَجّال dajjāl, مُشَعْوِذ mušaʕwiḏ
Examples of mountebank in a sentence
- There is nothing ſo impoſſible in Nature, but Mountebanks vvill undertake; nothing ſo incredible but they vvill affirm: Mrs.1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “How Signior Cavallo, an Italian Quack, Undertook to Cure Mrs. Bull of Her Ulcer”, in...
- Gary Dahl, the man behind that scheme—described variously as a marketing genius and a genial mountebank—died on March 23 at 78.2015 March 31, Margalit Fox, “Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock, Dies at 78”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- “We’re not going to have a Pendennis, the head of the house, marry a strolling mountebank from a booth.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter VII, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I...
Synonyms of mountebank
- charlatan
- conman
- fake
- quack
- bunco artist
- bunco-steerer
- chiseler
- con artist
- confidence artist
- confidence trickster
12 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of mountebank
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | mountebanks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | mountebanks |
| present participle | mountebanking |
| past participle | mountebanked |
| past | mountebanked |
Origin of mountebank
From archaic Italian montambanco (“quack who mounts a bench to hawk his wares”), contracted from monta-in-banco (“mount on bench”).
Words formed from mountebank
Questions about mountebank
- What does mountebank mean?
- Mountebank means one who sells dubious medicines.
- What is mountebank in Urdu?
- Mountebank in Urdu is عطائی, فریبی, نیم حکیم. See Mountebank meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use mountebank in a sentence?
- There is nothing ſo impoſſible in Nature, but Mountebanks vvill undertake; nothing ſo incredible but they vvill affirm: Mrs.
- What part of speech is mountebank?
- Mountebank can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce mountebank?
- Mountebank is pronounced /ˈmaʊntəˌbæŋk/.
- What is the plural of mountebank?
- The plural of mountebank is mountebanks.
Words near mountebank in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mountebank (page history and authors); mountebank (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mountebank (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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-us-mountebank.ogg.
Cite this entry: “mountebank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mountebank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.