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charlatan, n. and a.|ˈʃɑːlətən, -tæn|
Forms: 7 chiarlatan, charlitan, (schareleton), 7– charlatan.
[a. F. charlatan ‘a mountebanke, a cousening drug-seller, a pratling quack-salver, a tatler, babler’ (Cotgr.), ad. It. ciarlatano = ciarlatore babbler, patterer, mountebank, f. ciarlare to babble, patter, act the mountebank, f. ciarla, chat, prattle; cf. Sp., Pg. charlar, Wallachian charrar, ONF. charer (Diez) to prattle, babble. Cf. quack to gabble like a duck, talk like a Cheap Jack, puff patent medicines, act as a charlatan.]
A. n.
†1. A mountebank or Cheap Jack who descants volubly to a crowd in the street; esp. an itinerant vendor of medicines who thus puffs his ‘science’ and drugs. (Now included under 2.)[1605B. Jonson Volpone ii. ii, The Rabble of these ground Ciarlitani, that spred their Clokes on the Pavement. 1611Coryat Crudities Panegyr. Verses, Sometimes to hear the Ciarlatans.] 1618D. Belchier Hans Beer-pot D j b, I think the Serieant is grown Mountebancke To cling by shifts, hey, passe, passe, Italian grown; a sharking Charlatan. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. iii. 11 Saltimbancoes, Quacksalvers, and Charlatans, deceive them in lower degrees. 1678Butler Hud. iii. ii. 971 For Chiarlatans can do no good, Vntil th' are mounted in a Crowd. 1771Mrs. Harris in Priv. Lett. 1st Ld. Malmesbury I. 214 At the masquerade..Mr. Banbury was a most excellent friseur, Lord Berkeley a charlatan. [1864Burton Scot Abr. I. iii. 145 He is called a charlatan, quack, and mountebank.] †b. One who puffs his wares; a puffer.
1670Cotton Espernon Pref., Though in the foregoing Paragraph, I have discover'd something of the Charlatan in the behalf of my Bookseller.
2. An empiric who pretends to possess wonderful secrets, esp. in the healing art; an empiric or impostor in medicine, a quack.
a1680Butler Rem. (1759) II. 197 Charlatans make Diseases fit their Medicines, and not their Medicines Diseases. 1710Addison Tatler No. 240 ⁋3 Ordinary Quacks and Charlatans. [1762J. Brown Poetry & Mus. iii. 34 note, Charlatans, a Word with which we have none precisely correspondent in our Language: It signifies here, one who is a Pretender to Medecine by the Arts of Magic.] 1791Burke Let. Memb. Nat. Assembly Wks. 1842 I. 478 The nation is sick, very sick, by their medicines. But the charlatan tells them that what is passed cannot be helped. 1841Brewster Mart. Sc. ii. iv. (1856) 153 The charlatans, whether they deal in moral or in physical wonders, form a race which is never extinct. 1860Tanner Pregnancy i. 3.
3. An assuming empty pretender to knowledge or skill; a pretentious impostor.
1809Edin. Rev. Apr. 193 The Alexandrian sages [Proclus, etc.]..were in fact the charlatans of antient philosophy. 1840Carlyle Heroes (1858) 268 A questionable step for me..to say..that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all, and not rather an ambitious charlatan. 1858Froude Hist. Eng. III. xvi. 363 His [Cromwell's] true creed was a hatred of charlatans. 1872Geo. Eliot Middlem. v. xlv. 335 A charlatan in religion is sure to like other sorts of charlatans.
B. adj. Of or pertaining to a charlatan; empirical, quack.
1671True Non-Conf. 376 But the schareleton tricks of a pitiful impostor. 1852Gladstone Glean. IV. ii. 141 Theatrical, not to say charlatan and mountebank, politics. 1862Shirley Nugæ Crit. xi. 472 Because I love freedom..I hesitate to apply the charlatan quackeries which may fatally hurt all that is best and most living in English liberty. |