{"id":6968,"date":"2025-06-10T03:35:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T03:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6968"},"modified":"2025-06-10T03:37:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T03:37:50","slug":"word-of-the-day-mountebank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2025\/06\/10\/word-of-the-day-mountebank\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Mountebank"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary<\/a>), is mountebank<\/em>. In his famous dictionary first published in 1755, Samuel Johnson says that a mountebank<\/em> is \u201cA doctor that mounts a bench in the market, and boasts his infallible remedies and cures\u201d or \u201cAny boastful and false pretender\u201d (https:\/\/johnsonsdictionaryonline.com\/views\/search.php?term=mountebank<\/a>). Merriam-Webster defines mountebank<\/em> as \u201ca person who sells quack medicines from a platform\u201d or \u201ca boastful unscrupulous pretender\u201d (https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/mountebank<\/a>). M-W also provides definitions for mountebank as both a transitive (\u201cto beguile or transform by trickery\u201d) and an intransitive (\u201cto play the mountebank\u201d) verb, but both verb forms are listed as \u201cobsolete\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M-W explains the etymology: \u201cMountebank<\/em> derives from the Italian montimbanco,<\/em> which was formed by combining the verb \u2018montare\u2019 (\u2018to mount\u2019), the preposition \u2018in\u2019 (converted to im <\/em> meaning \u2018in\u2019 or \u2018on\u2019), and the noun \u2018banco\u2019 (\u2018bench\u2019). Put these components together and you can deduce the literal origins of \u2018mountebank\u2019 as someone mounted on a bench – the \u2018bench\u2019 being the platform on which charlatans from the 16th and 17th centuries would stand to sell their phony medicines. Mountebanks often included various forms of light entertainment on stage in order to attract customers. Later, extended uses of \u2018mountebank\u2019 referred to someone who falsely claims to have knowledge about a particular subject or a person who simply pretends to be something he or she is not in order to gain attention\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline.com says that the word entered the English language in the \u201c1570s, from Italian montambanco<\/em>, contraction of monta in banco<\/em> \u2018quack, juggler,\u2019 literally \u2018mount on bench\u2019 (to be seen by crowd), from monta<\/em>, imperative of montare<\/em> \u2018to mount\u2019 (see mount<\/strong><\/a> (v.)) + banco<\/em>, variant of banca<\/em> \u2018bench,\u2019 from a Germanic source (see bench<\/strong><\/a> (n.)). Figurative and extended senses, in reference to any impudent pretender or charlatan, are from 1580s\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/mountebank<\/a>). The origin of banco<\/em> then is \u201cfrom Proto-Germanic *bankon <\/em>(source also of Old Frisian bank<\/em> \u2018bench,\u2019 Old Norse bekkr<\/em>, Danish b\u00e6nk<\/em>, Middle Dutch banc<\/em>, Old High German banch<\/em>). The group is cognate with bank<\/strong><\/a> (n.2) \u2018natural earthen incline beside a body of water,\u2019 and perhaps the original notion is \u2018man-made earthwork used as a seat\u2019\u201d (ibid.). When I was a small child, if I stuck out my lower lip as a pout, my father, who spoke some German, would call it my Schusterbank (\u201ccobbler\u2019s bench\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the word was available to Shakespeare, who used it several times, such as in Hamlet<\/em> 4.7:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought an unction of a mountebank<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where it draws blood, no cataplasm so rare,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can save the thing from death<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is but scratch’d withal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this day 265 years ago, New York City became the first jurisdiction to mandate the \u201cexamining and licensing of prospective doctors, and penalizing unlicensed physicians\u201d (http:\/\/www.famousdaily.com\/history\/ny-law-first-regulates-medicine-practice.html<\/a>). Famous Daily writes, \u201cUnscrupulous purveyors of fake medicine would take to the streets in middle-ages Netherlands, shouting to advertise their wares. They were called quacksalver, or kwakzalver<\/em> in modern Dutch, leading to the term used for fraudulent doctors today\u2014quacks. Quackery persisted through the centuries in Europe and found its way to the American colonies, where the earliest steps to regulate the profession were taken\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etymonline.com says of quack<\/em> (No. 2), \u201c\u2019medical charlatan, impudent and fraudulent pretender to medical skill,\u2019 1630s, short for quacksalver<\/em> (1570s), from obsolete Dutch quacksalver<\/em> (modern kwakzalver<\/em>), literally \u2018hawker of salve,\u2019 from Middle Dutch quacken<\/em> \u2018to brag, boast,\u2019 literally \u2018to croak\u2019 + salf<\/em> \u2018salve,\u2019 salven<\/em> \u2018to rub with ointment\u2019. As an adjective from 1650s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe oldest attested form of this quack<\/em> in English is as a verb, \u2018to play the quack\u2019 (1620s). The Dutch word also is the source of German Quacksalber<\/em>, Danish kvaksalver<\/em>, Swedish kvacksalvare<\/em>\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=quack<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So without laws requiring doctors to get licensed after extensive education, our country might be overrun with people standing on benches croaking about their salves. Whew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is from \u201cThomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), Doctor Botherum, the Mountebank<\/em>, 1800. Etching with hand coloring\u201d (https:\/\/www.princeton.edu\/~graphicarts\/2009\/11\/doctor_botherum_the_mountebank.html<\/a>). I love the doctor\u2019s last name although I would associate it more with lawyers than with doctors. Then again, I live in the 21st<\/sup> century, not the 18th<\/sup> or 19th century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of Words Coach (https:\/\/www.wordscoach.com\/dictionary), is mountebank. In his famous dictionary first published in 1755, Samuel Johnson says that a mountebank is \u201cA doctor that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[238,395,284,790,791],"class_list":["post-6968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","tag-mountebank","tag-quacksalver","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6970,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6968\/revisions\/6970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}