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mountebank

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)

Origin: It. Montimbanco, montambanco; montare to mount _ in in, upon _ banco bench. See Mount, and 4th Bank.