Charlatan vs. Mountebank — What's the Difference?

A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception. Synonyms for charlatan include shyster, quack, or faker.

A hawker of quack medicines who attracts customers with stories, jokes, or tricks.

A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.

A flamboyant charlatan.

(obsolete) A mountebank, someone who addresses crowds in the street; especially, an itinerant seller of medicines or drugs.

One who sells dubious medicines.

A malicious trickster; a fake person, especially one who deceives for personal profit.

One who sells by deception; a con artist.

One who prates much in his own favor, and makes unwarrantable pretensions; a quack; an impostor; an empiric; a mountebank.

Any boastful, false pretender.

A flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes

(obsolete) An acrobat.

(intransitive) To act as a mountebank.

(transitive) To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.

One who mounts a bench or stage in the market or other public place, boasts of his skill in curing diseases, and vends medicines which he pretends are infallible remedies; a quack doctor.

Any boastful or false pretender; a charlatan; a quack.

To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull.

To play the mountebank.

A flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes