Mountebank

n. [It. montimbanco, montam-banco, from montare, to mount, in, in, upon, and banco, bench.]

1Sense 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 infallible remedies; a quack-doctor.

Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that a mountebank or cunning woman is preferred before an able physician. Whitlock.

2Sense 2. Hence, any boastful and false pretender; a charlatan; a quack.

Nothing so impossible in nature but mountebanks will undertake. Arbuthnot.

To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull. [Rare.] Shak.