as in fraud
one who makes false claims of identity or expertise
claimed that many doctors were frauds and mountebanks
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Recent Examples of mountebank
Good afternoon and welcome to Con Con, the convention for swindlers, mountebanks, and the people who love them.
—
Henry Alford, New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2025
Godard might have come across as a species of poseur – a pretentious, quote-spouting mountebank – but his way of seeing was genuinely new.
—Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, 13 Nov. 2025
With tariffs on pharmaceuticals, the mountebank of Mar-A-Lago wants to punish a small democracy of 5.3 million people that for the past 60 years has worked its way into the top table of drug research and production: Ireland.
—Kevin Rennie, Hartford Courant, 29 Mar. 2025
Gould observed that Jerry Falwell had taken up the mountebank’s mission of William Jennings Bryan.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 26 July 2024
Now, this pallid Color Purple epitomizes the artistic dearth of an era when a cultural mountebank like Winfrey uses race and feminist guile to cheat us of America’s most creative achievements.
—Armond White, National Review, 3 Jan. 2024
The alternative circumstance, that crackpots and mountebanks might claim such evidence exists, then fail to produce any, is, on the other hand, entirely plausible and familiar.
—Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 31 July 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mountebank
Noun
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The president and his allies accused Cook of mortgage fraud.—
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At the same briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt came out swinging at Minnesota Democrats in defense of the ICE agent while touting the Medicaid fraud investigation, which dates back to the Biden administration.—
Noun
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Both the pillow shams and bedding are made with a comfy cotton blend.—
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All of us know this is a sham and a shame.—
Noun
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The Cult of the Beaver has to fend off pretenders.—
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Advertisement Iranians deserve better than the Pahlavi pretender.—
Noun
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First up was Ben Shapiro, who described Tucker Carlson and others as grifters and charlatans, guilty of misleading their audiences with falsehoods and conspiracy theories.—
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Of course, there is also plenty of Trump flattery along with paeans to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his cockamamie make-America-sick-again agenda, as one medical charlatan nods to another.—
Noun
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That first episode is a clever fake-out.—
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The collectibles market is flooded with fakes.—
Noun
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Islamic eschatology warned of a deceiver who distorts perception, blurring reality.—
Noun
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But let’s circle back to TV‘s patron saint of affable, oft–insidious quacks.—
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Automatic ducking doesn't add quacks to your soundtrack.—
Noun
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In such places – and especially when the would-be ally’s role is highly visible and entails heavy responsibility – people are vulnerable to impostor feelings.—
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Now, artificial intelligence has become the latest battleground for digital impostors.—
Cite this Entry
“Mountebank.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mountebank. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
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