mountebank

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian montambanco, also montimbanco,^[2][3][4] a contraction of the phrase monta in banco (“mount on a bench”),^[2][5][6] which alludes to the raised platform used by travelling sellers.^[2][7] The phrase is made up of monta, in (“on”) and banco (“bench”).^[2][5] Most dictionaries take monta as the imperative of montare (“to mount, climb”),^[2][5][6][3] while the American Heritage Dictionary takes it as the third person singular, "one gets up".^[8] The verb goes back to Vulgar Latin *montō,^[8][9] and banco is a variant of banca,^[8][5] from Old High German bank.^[8] The OED compares Middle French montenbancque, recorded from the 15th century,^[2] and Partridge thought the word perhaps came through it.^[10] Weekley offers as an alternative the obsolete French monte-banc,^[11] and he compares saltimbanque and saltimbanco, "jump on bench", which are formed in the same way.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A travelling charlatan who sells supposed medicines and draws a crowd with entertainments: 1566, in J. Rastell's Third Book against M. Jewel.^[2][9] Barnhart dates the word to 1577 and Etymonline to the 1570s.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a particular trade, and Barnhart pictures the seller on a wagon or platform, holding his audience with stories, tricks and juggling.^[3] Trench quotes Whitlock's description of him as "a fellow above the vulgar more by three planks and two empty hogsheads than by any true skill".^[12] By 1589 it could mean any person who falsely claims knowledge or skill,^[2] and Etymonline likewise puts the figurative use in the 1580s.^[5] Johnson (1755) gives both senses, the doctor who mounts a bench in the market and any boastful false pretender, and quotes Hamlet for the first: "I bought an unction of a mountebank".^[13] Trench (1859) wrote that the word was by then used of any antic fool, though it had once been limited to the quack doctor.^[12] The verb, formed from the noun, first meant to win people over with a mountebank's persuasion, as in Coriolanus: "I'll mountebank their loves".^[2][9] Its transitive uses died out by the early 18th century,^[2][4] and the sense "to play the mountebank" is now rare.^[2] A rare noun sense, the bateleur eagle, was recorded only in the 1890s.^[2]

Timeline

• 1566 – a travelling seller of supposed medicines.^[2][9] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1570–80.^[14]
• 1589 – any charlatan or false pretender to skill.^[2]
• before 1616 – verb, to win over by a mountebank's persuasion, in Shakespeare's Coriolanus.^[2][9]
• 1647 – verb, to bring in or transform by mountebank trickery (obsolete after 1702).^[2]
• 1657 – mountebank behaviour, or an act of it (obsolete after 1722).^[2]
• 1814 – verb, to behave as a mountebank, in a letter of Lord Byron.^[2]
• 1890 – the bateleur eagle (obsolete after 1899).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who claims knowledge or skill falsely, especially for gain; a charlatan or fraud: The so-called financial expert proved to be a mountebank.^[9][15][2]
2. (historical) A quack who sold medicines in public places, travelling from town to town and appealing to a crowd from a raised platform.^[15][9][4]
3. An entertainer, such as a juggler or magician, hired by a quack to draw a crowd.^[9]
4. (obsolete, 1657–1722) The behaviour of a mountebank; mountebankery.^[2][4]
5. (obsolete, 1890–99) The bateleur eagle.^[2][4]

Verb

1. To play the mountebank.^[15][9][2]
2. (obsolete) To beguile or transform by trickery.^[9][2][4]

Word family

• mountebankery
• mountebankism

Related words

• mount
• bench
• bank
• saltimbanco

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins