mountebankery

M3O1U1N1T1E1B3A1N1K5E1R1Y4

noun

The practices of a mountebank; quackery; boastful and vain pretenses.

Scrabble 24

Meanings

nounmountebankery (countable and uncountable, plural mountebankeries)

plural mountebankeries

  1. countableuncountableThe practices of a mountebank; quackery; boastful and vain pretenses.
    1 more example

    I have already alluded to "strawing," which can hardly be described as quackery. It is rather a piece of mountebankery. […] The strawer offers to sell any passer by in the streets a straw and give the purchaser a paper which he dares not sell. Accordingly as he judges of the character of his audience, so he intimates that the paper is political, libellous, irreligious, or indecent.

    1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

mountebankery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mountebankery

MLA

“mountebankery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mountebankery. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mountebankery,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mountebankery.

Source: mountebankery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.