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

“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

If you write about music, at some point you will upset somebody, likely a fan of an artist you have whimsically dismissed as a talentless mountebank.

From The Guardian • May 13, 2010

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