mountebank

noun

1. One who sells dubious medicines.

   “She is abus'd, ſtolne from me, and corrupted / By Spels, and Medicines, bought of Mountebanks”

   “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 Ointment and Plaiſter, vvhich being applied to the Sore vvould Cure it in a fevv Days; […]”

   “A personage appears before him with a broad-brimmed hat, such as the students wear at Wittenberg, a wandering clerk, perhaps, or a charlatan Juggler, a mountebank at a fair, who has laid out on a stand a laboratory of ill-assorted jars.”

2. One who sells by deception; a con artist.

   “Donne was a mountebank who wrapped up his lack of meaning in hard words.”

   “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——”

   “It has been pointed out in this space before that a number of the titles you'll find shelved under self-help in your local bookshop are, on closer examination, farragos of wooden-headed tripe, written by mountebanks and halfwits.”

   “Gary Dahl, the man behind that scheme—described variously as a marketing genius and a genial mountebank—died on March 23 at 78.”

3. 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:”

   “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 […]”

   ““We’re not going to have a Pendennis, the head of the house, marry a strolling mountebank from a booth. No, no, we won’t marry into Greenwich Fair, ma’am.” “We’re not going to have a Pendennis, the head of the house, marry a strolling mountebank from a booth. No, no, we won’t marry into Greenwich Fair, ma’am.””

4. (obsolete)An acrobat.

verb

1. (intransitive)To act as a mountebank.
2. (transitive)To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.

   “Ile Mountebanke their Loues, / Cogge their Hearts from them,”