charlatan

noun char·la·tan \ ˈshär-lə-tən \

Definition of charlatan

1 : ⁴quack 2

charlatans harming their patients with dubious procedures

2 : one making usually showy pretenses to knowledge or ability : fraud, faker

a charlatan willing to do and say virtually anything to remain in the spotlight
—Alan Brinkley

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charlatanism

play \-tə-ˌni-zəm\ noun

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charlatanry

play \-rē\ noun

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charlatan was our Word of the Day on 06/03/2014. Hear the podcast!

Examples of charlatan in a Sentence

the famed faith healer turned out to be a charlatan

Recent Examples of charlatan from the Web

In Simpson’s just-the-facts-ma’am telling, Browder is a charlatan.

— andrew c. mccarthy, National Review, "Anatomy of a Farce," 13 Jan. 2018
Much of that has to do with him pledging allegiance to the same party that would elect a real estate charlatan who can't even be trusted to proofread his own tweets.

— michael arceneaux, Essence.com, "OPINION: Isn't It Time For Ben Carson To Go Back To Medicine?," 21 Mar. 2018
The charlatan provides no references, and ignores the scientist who requests them.

— cara rosenbloom, chicagotribune.com, "Skeptics use science to fight wave of bad nutrition advice on the internet," 7 Feb. 2018
Annan, who had no such evidence to offer himself, was quickly found to be a moneygrubbing charlatan.

— ryan p. smith, Smithsonian, "Meet the Female Inventor Behind Mass-Market Paper Bags," 15 Mar. 2018
That shift left people vulnerable to charlatans, people who fake their credentials and promote ideas that scientists consider incorrect.

— meghan bartels, Newsweek, "What UFO 'Encounters' Can Tell Us About Fake News and Climate Change Denial," 1 Mar. 2018
During the investigation, Transit police forced several charlatans to pay thousands of dollars in restitution and prosecuted one woman who initially refused to return the money.

— martine powers, Washington Post, "Metro wants to refund fares for late trips. Here’s how that idea worked out in other cities," 10 Jan. 2018
Word on the street is ruby slippers, cowardly lions, and charlatan wizards look better in 35mm, and so that’s what the 1939 film will be shown in.

— marielle wakim, Los Angeles Magazine, "The 5 Best Things to Do in L.A. This Weekend," 1 Mar. 2018
That's when a dishonest charlatan lists many misleading items to leave their opponent flustered by heaps of pseudoscience.

— cara rosenbloom, chicagotribune.com, "Skeptics use science to fight wave of bad nutrition advice on the internet," 7 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'charlatan.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

In medieval times, people claiming medical skills they did not have roamed throughout Italy, selling "medicine" that was often completely without worth. Many of these pretenders reputedly came from a village called Cerreto, and as a result, cerretano (meaning "inhabitant of Cerreto") became an epithet for a quack physician. In addition, these frauds used a practiced patter to attract customers, rather like the chatter of a circus barker. The Italian word for "chatter" is ciarlare, and chattering was so associated with the cerretano that the spelling of the word shifted to ciarlatano. By the early 17th century, we had anglicized the Italian word to charlatan and adopted it as our own.