online medical dictionary | definition of 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.

(01 Mar 1998)