English Dictionary: mountebank | by the DICT Development Group |
4 results for mountebank | |
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: | |
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From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: | |
Mountebank \Mount"e*bank\, v. t. To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull. [R.] --Shak. | |
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: | |
Mountebank \Mount"e*bank\, v. i. To play the mountebank. | |
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: | |
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. |