(n.) 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.
(n.) Any boastful or false pretender; a charlatan; a quack.
(v. t.) To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull.
(v. i.) To play the mountebank.
Example Sentences:
(1) This bunch doesn’t have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
(2) He was the first and last ophthalmologist to travel from court to court of Europe with a cavalcade of outriders and supporters; and although he was caricatured as a mountebank, there was an element of genius about him, and his innovations, especially in squint surgery, demand that he should not be forgotten.
Mountebankery
Definition:
(n.) The practices of a mountebank; quackery; boastful and vain pretenses.