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单词 mountebank
释义

Definition of mountebank in English:

mountebank

noun ˈmaʊntɪbaŋkˈmaʊn(t)əˌbæŋk
  • 1A person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money; a charlatan.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • The artistic milieu of late-nineteenth century France is the world in which he moves, surrounded by artists, aristocrats, mountebanks and tarts.
    • Yes, for a long time I have been agitating for the licensing of ‘psychics’ and other such mountebanks.
    • He is a mountebank and a racist.
    • What could that mountebank of a preacher have said to turn his mind so?
    • Epithets of ‘statesman’ were thrown around, but charlatan or mountebank might have been more appropriate.
    • All along, he was an audacious mountebank and a mendacious bully, who knew almost nothing about actual existing communism and who never identified a single Soviet agent.
    • In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the ‘learned physicians’ who were taught Galenic humoral medicine in the universities labelled such doctors quacks, empirics, and mountebanks.
    • He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity.
    • It was otherwise an unremarkable fair: too much food, dancing, theft, mountebanks, young men and women sneaking off together, people in witlessly fashionable clothing.
    • They're nothing but a pack of social scientists, marketers, and mountebanks who don't even look at the game but analyze the arena for logo penetration and recognition.
    • You get back idiotic form letters from these mountebanks telling you they ‘care’ and ‘are investigating.’
    • He is not yet regarded as the mountebank he really is.
    • Is this not the age of the mountebank, of the spin-doctor and his big lies?
    • Style and elegance are no longer twin fortes of virus-writing mountebanks.
    • And you, editors of my beloved Book Review, without which no weekend would be complete, should be ashamed, deeply so, for giving this mountebank such unwarranted attention.
    • Mountebanks like him can suck them dry of their last earnings by promising them a little nest in the heavens.
    • He has been described as a ‘a mountebank, a charlatan and a scribbler’ by one author, although others see him as a proto-social scientist.
    • It has become the profession of public office seekers, title hunters, social pushers, dollar diddlers, mountebanks and cads.
    Synonyms
    swindler, charlatan, confidence trickster, confidence man, fraud, fraudster, impostor, trickster, racketeer, hoaxer, sharper, quack, rogue, villain, scoundrel
    informal conman, shark, flimflammer, sharp
    British informal twister
    North American informal grifter, bunco artist, chiseller
    Australian informal shicer, magsman, illywhacker
    rare defalcator
    1. 1.1historical A person who sold patent medicines in public places.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • Whitman, so deeply sensuous that his poetry has the emotive compulsion of the fairground mountebank, was famous enough to be used in advertisements.
      • There had always been mountebanks and charlatans operating in the public squares, but they now dominated the marketplace.
      • Additional evidence indicates that it was a term used among medical mountebanks in Tudor times.
      • A lifestyle guru is a modern sort of mountebank, selling quack advice instead of false medicines.
      • The word toady comes from ‘toad-eater’: a quack's or mountebank's assistant who would eat, or pretend to eat, a toad so he could be cured by the medicine man.

Derivatives

  • mountebankery

  • noun
    • So some two decades later he set out to transform the securities industry with a report that he hoped would expose its mountebankery and lead to a miraculous transformation.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • There was one explanation as to why he was able to pass off mountebankery as art for so long; the myth of impressionism.
      • Just like astrology or mountebankery, intelligent design is an agenda-driven pseudo-science that requires faith instead of facts, and imagination instead of empirical evidence.
      • This is not a business where mountebankery is to be encouraged.

Origin

Late 16th century: from Italian montambanco, from the imperative phrase monta in banco! 'climb on the bench!' (with allusion to the raised platform used to attract an audience).

  • bank from Middle English:

    The very different uses of bank are all ultimately related. The bank beside a river was adopted from a Scandinavian word in the early Middle Ages, and is related to bench (Old English). The earliest use of the bank for a financial institution referred to a money-dealer's counter or table. This came from French or Italian in the late 15th century, but goes back to the same root as the river bank. A bank of oars or of lights represents yet another related form. It came into English in the early Middle Ages from French, and originally meant a bench or a platform to speak from. The bench or platform sense is also found in mountebank (late 16th century) for a charlatan, which comes from Italian monta in banco ‘climb on the bench’ referring to the way they attract a crowd, while a bankrupt (mid 16th century), originally a bankrout takes us back to the ‘counter’ sense. It is from Italian banca rotta, which really means ‘a broken bench’, referring to the breaking up of the traders business at the counter. The word was altered early on in its history in English, through association with Latin ruptus ‘broken’. Yet another word from the same source is banquet (Late Middle English) which comes from the French for ‘little bench’ and was originally a snack rather than a lavish meal.

 
 

Definition of mountebank in US English:

mountebank

nounˈmoun(t)əˌbaNGkˈmaʊn(t)əˌbæŋk
  • 1A person who deceives others, especially in order to trick them out of their money; a charlatan.

    Example sentencesExamples
    • They're nothing but a pack of social scientists, marketers, and mountebanks who don't even look at the game but analyze the arena for logo penetration and recognition.
    • Is this not the age of the mountebank, of the spin-doctor and his big lies?
    • It was otherwise an unremarkable fair: too much food, dancing, theft, mountebanks, young men and women sneaking off together, people in witlessly fashionable clothing.
    • All along, he was an audacious mountebank and a mendacious bully, who knew almost nothing about actual existing communism and who never identified a single Soviet agent.
    • It has become the profession of public office seekers, title hunters, social pushers, dollar diddlers, mountebanks and cads.
    • Style and elegance are no longer twin fortes of virus-writing mountebanks.
    • And you, editors of my beloved Book Review, without which no weekend would be complete, should be ashamed, deeply so, for giving this mountebank such unwarranted attention.
    • In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the ‘learned physicians’ who were taught Galenic humoral medicine in the universities labelled such doctors quacks, empirics, and mountebanks.
    • He has been described as a ‘a mountebank, a charlatan and a scribbler’ by one author, although others see him as a proto-social scientist.
    • He is a mountebank and a racist.
    • The artistic milieu of late-nineteenth century France is the world in which he moves, surrounded by artists, aristocrats, mountebanks and tarts.
    • You get back idiotic form letters from these mountebanks telling you they ‘care’ and ‘are investigating.’
    • He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without any shame or dignity.
    • Epithets of ‘statesman’ were thrown around, but charlatan or mountebank might have been more appropriate.
    • He is not yet regarded as the mountebank he really is.
    • Yes, for a long time I have been agitating for the licensing of ‘psychics’ and other such mountebanks.
    • Mountebanks like him can suck them dry of their last earnings by promising them a little nest in the heavens.
    • What could that mountebank of a preacher have said to turn his mind so?
    Synonyms
    swindler, charlatan, confidence trickster, confidence man, fraud, fraudster, impostor, trickster, racketeer, hoaxer, sharper, quack, rogue, villain, scoundrel
    1. 1.1historical A person who sold patent medicines in public places.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • There had always been mountebanks and charlatans operating in the public squares, but they now dominated the marketplace.
      • The word toady comes from ‘toad-eater’: a quack's or mountebank's assistant who would eat, or pretend to eat, a toad so he could be cured by the medicine man.
      • Additional evidence indicates that it was a term used among medical mountebanks in Tudor times.
      • A lifestyle guru is a modern sort of mountebank, selling quack advice instead of false medicines.
      • Whitman, so deeply sensuous that his poetry has the emotive compulsion of the fairground mountebank, was famous enough to be used in advertisements.

Origin

Late 16th century: from Italian montambanco, from the imperative phrase monta in banco! ‘climb on the bench!’ (with allusion to the raised platform used to attract an audience).

 
 
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更新时间:2024/12/23 9:40:21