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charlatan

UK/ˈʃɑːlətən/US/ˈʃɑɹlətən/
nounC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,736 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: charlatans

A charlatan is somebody who falsely claims special skill. An obvious charlatan.

The claim is what matters rather than incompetence, since a charlatan knows the claim is false. Every field with expertise nobody can check attracts a charlatan sooner or later.

Didier Descouens · Public domain

Definitions of charlatan

  1. 1nouncharlatanSomebody who falsely claims special skill.C2

    “The whole clinic was run by a charlatan with a printed certificate.”

charlatan is a person.

Remember it

The Italian behind it is a chatterer, the man at the market stall who talks and never stops. A charlatan talks and cannot do.

hooks ontomarket

Where it comes from

Italian ciarlatano blends ciarlare, to chatter, with cerretano, a seller from Cerreto, a town famous for quacks.

  1. roa-oit

    ciarlatano — quack

  2. Middle French

    charlatan

  3. English, today

    charlatan

Built from

  • ciarlatore · Italian — chatterer
  • cerretano · Italian — hawker, quack (literally “native of Cerreto”)

From Middle French charlatan, from roa-oit ciarlatano (“quack”), a blend of ciarlatore (“chatterer”) + cerretano (“hawker, quack”) literally “native of Cerreto” (Cerreto di Spoleto being a village in Umbria, known for its quacks).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

charlatan in the wild

  • One example of a charlatan appears in the Canterbury Tales story "The Pardoner's Tale," with the Pardoner who tricks sinners into buying fake religious relics.

    Charlatan

  • Used since Antiquity, crystal balls have had a broad reputation with witchcraft, including modern times with charlatan acts and amusements at circus venues, festivals, etc.

    Crystal ball

  • A swindler is generally a charlatan, a person practicing quackery, fraud, or similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, property, or advantage by pretense.

    Swindler (disambiguation)

  • A charlatan is a trickster or con artist.

    Charlatan (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.