mountebank

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Mencken described Bryan as “a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity.”

From Salon • Jan. 25, 2024

And Ricky goes to his library and then sends me an entire description of what the mountebank would be doing.”

From Slate • Dec. 10, 2018

“Some dreadful mountebank in a long-tailed coat will open . . . with a windy speech; then another mountebank will repeat the same rubbish in other words.”

From The New Yorker • Jun. 27, 2016

Gary Dahl, the man behind that scheme — described variously as a marketing genius and a genial mountebank — died on March 23 at 78.

From New York Times • Mar. 31, 2015

Was it not a dangerous word, too closely connected to Hobbes and to dubious stories about sympathetic magic told by Digby—someone whom John Evelyn, another early member, could dismiss as an arrant mountebank?

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton