The story
- Italian · borrowed fromsaltimbanco
- English todaysaltimbanco
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.
Words from the same roots
Italiansaltimbanco all →
saltimbanque
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.