saltimbanco

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A quack doctor, a fraud.

Pronunciation

/sæltɪmˈbæŋkəʊ/

Word forms

saltimbanco saltimbancos

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian saltimbanco. Used thus in English because of the association with street performers, seen by the settled population in English-speaking culture as not to be trusted. A more usual and more accurate English word, derived from similar sources, is mountebank.

Synonyms

Related words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.