Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge; a quack or fraud.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who pretends to knowledge, skill, importance, etc., which he does not possess; a pretender; a quack, mountebank, or empiric.
- n. Synonyms Impostor, cheat, pretender; Mountebank, etc. (see quack).
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who prates much in his own favor, and makes unwarrantable pretensions; a quack; an impostor; an empiric; a mountebank.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes
Etymologies
- From Middle French charlatan, from Italian ciarlatano ("quack"), a blend of ciarlatore ("a chatterer") and cerretano ("a hawker, quack"), literally, a native of Cerreto, a village in Umbria, known for its quacks. (Wiktionary)
- French, from Italian ciarlatano, probably alteration (influenced by ciarlare, to prattle) of cerretano, inhabitant of Cerreto, a city of Italy once famous for its quacks. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“This huckster or streetcorner charlatan is going to be a lame duck in less than a year from now as the coward in theif dosen't realize that the independents that ELECTED him are running from his BS and LIES in droves.”
“Frequently, the charlatan is more convincing and credible.”
Physician Licensing, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“I swear I don't know what's wrong with the people in Connecticut but to keep re-electing this charlatan is beyond me.”
“Harry Reid, please expel this charlatan from the caucus.”
“Any reviewer who crafts a fanciful narratives characterising the writer as some sort of hack or charlatan is waving that gun in the air.”
“All you Obamaramazombies can take what this charlatan is peddling as gospel, but thinking people won't and don't.”
“I think the Swift Boat political advertisement calling Kerry a charlatan is in poor taste, and if this kind of thing continues it might well backfire on the Kerry haters.”
“The masseur/charlatan is the author's shadow and caricature, to which he exorcistically transfers his bizarre traits and imagined failures, something like Sartre did with the autodidact in La Nausée.”
“A charlatan is often a great man who was found out just a bit too soon by reporters and historians.”
“Not only the temporal authorities and the priests were arrayed against Him, as of old, but now He managed to arouse the opposition of the physicians of those days, who saw their practice ruined by this man whom they called a charlatan and deceiver threatening and destroying the health of the people, whose physical welfare was safe only in their (the physicians ') hands and keeping.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘charlatan’.
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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POL - scandalous (single words only)
acolyte, archrival, backhander, backlash, baksheesh, bashing, boo, bribery, cadre, chicanery, clash, coercion and 256 more...
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Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 212 more...
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Dramatic Nouns
Nouns to be used as descriptions while writing stories
night owl, early bird, hedonist, ascetic, derelict, explorer, radical, pity friend, cupid, truant, caretaker, guardian and 120 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Unsavory characters
absconder, aretaloger, arriviste, avaunter, bamboozler, bandit, banger, barbarian, barmecide, barrator, beldam, blatherskite and 190 more...
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Who hid the keys?
Words for people who like to hide ideas, objects, and other living things
censor, bibliotaph, smuggler, stoic, obfuscator, cryptographer, novelist, magician, statistician, beautician, mule, abductor and 29 more...
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People are Scum
words that one may enjoy using to describe other people or their actions
degenerate, reprobate, scapegrace, capricious, sycophant, arbitrary, infernal, abominable, iniquitous, nefarious, philistine, sadistic and 39 more...
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types of people
the name of a certain type of person or character
confidante, sycophant, exhibitionist, introvert, demagogue, ascetic, philanthropist, imbecile, zealot, stoic, fanatic, epicure and 3 more...
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Notable
undulate, priaprism, alphanumeric, conjure, love, roughshod, helpless, palatial, chortle, swimmingly, mustachioed, symbiotic and 21 more...
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words to describe people ~
theic, docile, droll, pallid, despondent, sallow, paraphilia, ascetic, grandiloquent, garrulous, charlatan
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Ecology
apishamore, argonaut, latent, unbacked, dichotomy, noctilucent, assoil, animalcule, succinct, vespertine, crozzle, vermilion and 15 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for charlatan.
Kristianto2010 Aware of religious charlatans who “peddled” God’s Word for their own desires, the apostle Paul wrote, “We are not, as so many, peddling the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God” 2 Corinthians 2:17. ODB Mar-25, 2011.
Mar 25, 2011