quacked; quacking; quacks
: to make the characteristic cry of a duck
1
: charlatan sense 2
Religious quacks on radio and television thinking up new ways to take money from ignorant listeners and incidentally from legitimate churches.—
Andrew A. Rooney
Andrew A. Rooney2
: an ignorant, misinformed, or dishonest practitioner of medicine
No doubt these misunderstandings and dashed hopes have driven many cancer patients and their families into the arms of quacks.—Haydn Bush
Haydn BushExamples of quack in a Sentence
Noun (2)
don't bother to see that guy, as I've heard he's a quack with no actual training
Recent Examples on the Web
Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 18 May 2025
Read: Looks like Mussolini, quacks like Mussolini The tools of psychoanalysis could actually help here, connecting the dreamer with the shape of the dream.
—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 23 Apr. 2025
New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 29 May 2025
The Spare Room by Helen Garner This is a book about a woman, Helen, who decides to let her old friend, Nicola, who is dying of cancer, come and stay with her in Melbourne while Nicola sees a local quack doctor.
—The New Yorker, New Yorker, 21 May 2025
Time, 3 June 2025
And open channels of information have identified and exposed fake news, conspiracy theories, and quack cures, limiting their domination of public discourse on the coronavirus.
—Dan Reiter, Foreign Affairs, 7 May 2020
See All Example Sentences for quack
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Verb
The mother duck watched, quacking loudly, from a nearby creekbed.
—Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 18 May 2025
Read: Looks like Mussolini, quacks like Mussolini The tools of psychoanalysis could actually help here, connecting the dreamer with the shape of the dream.
—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 23 Apr. 2025
Noun
Tell that to the kids who have been hospitalized and died from measles, following quack Dr. Bobby’s Rx to avoid the shots.
—New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 29 May 2025
The Spare Room by Helen Garner This is a book about a woman, Helen, who decides to let her old friend, Nicola, who is dying of cancer, come and stay with her in Melbourne while Nicola sees a local quack doctor.
—The New Yorker, New Yorker, 21 May 2025
Adjective
Women patients and doctors, including New York City physician Grace Peckham, successfully argued that the rest cure was not only quack medicine but more harmful to patients than the nervous sickness itself.
—Time, 3 June 2025
And open channels of information have identified and exposed fake news, conspiracy theories, and quack cures, limiting their domination of public discourse on the coronavirus.
—Dan Reiter, Foreign Affairs, 7 May 2020
See All Example Sentences for quack
Cite this Entry
“Quack.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quack. Accessed 5 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
quack
1 of 4 noun
: the cry of a duck
also
: a sound resembling this cry
quack
2 of 4 verb
: to make a quack
quack
3 of 4 noun
: a person who makes false claims to special knowledge or ability
especially
: one who pretends to have medical skill
quack
4 of 4 adjective
: of, relating to, or used by a person who is a quack
quack medicines
Etymology
Noun
a word created to imitate the sound made by a duck
Noun
a shortened form of earlier quacksalver "a person who pretends to have medical skill"; of Dutch origin
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