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.

© [Webster 1913].

Mount"e*bank, v. t.

To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull.

[R.]

Shak.

© [Webster 1913].

Mount"e*bank, v. i.

To play the mountebank.

© [Webster 1913].

mountebank (definition)