charlatanic

comparative more charlatanic · superlative most charlatanic

1. Charlatanical.

   Of the principal character thus introduced (the celebrated and graceful, but charlatanic, Bolingbroke) I still think that my sketch, upon the whole, is substantially just.

   1835 December 12, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, “Dedicatory Epistle to John Auldjo, Esq., &c. at Naples”, in Devereux (Colburn’s Modern Novelists; XII), London: […] [F]or Henry Colburn, by R[ichard] Bentley; […], published 1836, page vi

   1 more example

   [I] Vast and overwhelming, however, as the ills which follow in the train of over producing power, in the world material and manufacturing, they sink into utter insignificance--for magnitude, they are as Highgate Hill to sky-enveloped Chimborazo of eternal snow--in comparison with that crowding crush, that prodigious overflow, of charlatanic genius, in the world physical and spiritual, which blocks up every highway and byway, swarms in every circle, roars in every market-place, or thunders in each senate of the realm.

   1843 August, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LIV, number 334