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

A barrel-shaped figure in a much-worn black suit, overcoat and fedora, his face half-covered by a grizzled beard, he would appear to be a posturing mediocrity, a mountebank with a smooth line in Irish gab.

From New York Times • Sep. 20, 2020

“I’ll ask him—say, for something I’m writing—‘A guy’s wandering through upstate New York in 1802 and he comes to a tavern and there’s some sort of mountebank.

From Slate • Dec. 10, 2018

“Fancy language, senator. I will duel you at dawn you charlatan, you mountebank, you mendacious flimflamming dissembler. Bring a pistol and a thesaurus,” he quipped.

From The Guardian • Apr. 5, 2017

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