Crossword clues for charlatan
charlatan
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Charlatan \Char"la*tan\, n. [F. charlatan, fr. It. ciarlatano, fr. ciarlare to chartter, prate; of imitative origin; cf. It. zirlare to whistle like a thrush.] One who prates much in his own favor, and makes unwarrantable pretensions; a quack; an impostor; an empiric; a mountebank.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1610s, from French charlatan "mountebank, babbler" (16c.), from Italian ciarlatano "a quack," from ciarlare "to prate, babble," from ciarla "chat, prattle," perhaps imitative of ducks' quacking. Related: Charlatanism; charlatanical; charlatanry.
Wiktionary
n. A malicious trickster; a fake person, especially one who deceive for personal profit.
WordNet
n. a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes [syn: mountebank]
Wikipedia
A charlatan (also called swindler or mountebank) is a person practising quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception.
The word comes from French charlatan, a seller of medicines who might advertise his presence with music and an outdoor stage show. The best known of the Parisian charlatans was Tabarin, who set up a stage in the Place Dauphine, Paris in 1618, and whose commedia dell'arte inspired skits and whose farces inspired Molière. The word can also be traced to Spanish; charlatán, an indiscreetly talkative person, a chatterbox. Ultimately, etymologists trace "charlatan" from either the Italian ciarlare, to chatter or prattle; or from Cerretano, a resident of Cerreto, a village in Umbria, known for its quacks.
A charlatan is a trickster or con artist.
Charlatan may also refer to:
Usage examples of "charlatan".
These worthy people, seeing me dressed like a lord, with a cross on my breast, took me for a cosmopolitan charlatan who was expected at Augsburg, and Bassi, strange to say, did not undeceive them.
There were the usual doxies, tinkers, charlatans, and traders, intent on separating the crew of the Bucephalas from their money.
The best known on the shores of the Vistula are: the miraculous Cagliostro: Boisson de Quency, grand charlatan, soldier of fortune, decorated with many orders, member of numerous Academies: the Venetian Casanova of Saint-Gall, a true savant, who fought a duel with Count Branicki: the Baron de Poellnitz .
Is Michael Moore a courageous political documentarist who unmasks the chicanery all around us - or just a charlatan in a clown suit?
It takes a very moderate amount of erudition to unearth a charlatan like the supposed father of the infinitesimal dosing system.
By his marriages Home far outwent such famous charlatans as Cagliostro, Mesmer, and the mysterious Saint Germain the deathless.
Some use their knowledge to expose charlatans in and out of their ranks.
Many are conscious charlatans, using Christian evangelical or New Age language and symbols to prey on human frailty.
Yet those charlatans, those obscurers of the truth, blame inflation on everybody elseunions, business-anyone, anything, except themselves.
Not since those charlatans and crooks in Washington debased the dollar and keep right on doing it, grinning like idiots while they ruin us.
Park Avenue address, his publicity, and a rough idea of his list of patients, who were almost exclusively recruited from a social stratum which is notorious for lavishing its diamond-studded devotion on all manner of mountebanks, yogis, charlatans, and magna-quacks.
I was extremely astonished by this greeting, and replied that if it were not necessary I should not wear a sling, and that I was no charlatan.
These successes may be enough to convince many charlatans, no matter how cynical they were at the beginning, that they actually have mystical powers.
Zellermann a phony merely on account of his Park Avenue address, his publicity, and a rough idea of his list of patients, who were almost exclusively recruited from a social stratum which is notorious for lavishing its diamond-studded devotion on all manner of mountebanks, yogis, charlatans, and magna-quacks.
Thus, for instance, a fragment of three pages begins: 'A compliment which is only made to gild the pill is a positive impertinence, and Monsieur Bailli is nothing but a charlatan.