mountebank

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

A flamboyant charlatan.

To cheat by unscrupulous and impudent arts; gull.

To introduce or insinuate by delusive arts or pretensions.

To play the mountebank: with indefinite it.

A peripatetic quack; one who prescribes and sells nostrums at fairs and similar gatherings.

Hence Any impudent and unscrupulous pretender; a charlatan.

The short-tailed African kite, Helotarsus ecaudatus: so called from its aërial tumbling.

Pertaining to or consisting of mountebanks; sham; quack: as, a mountebank doctor.

Produced by quackery or jugglery.