charlatan

Noun

Meaning

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

Source: Webster's dictionary

Synonyms

mountebank faker pretender fraud impostor deceiver quack bluffer phony trickster hustler swindler shyster con artist fraudster
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Antonyms

honesty candor good guy good egg good person apple of my eye
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Hypernyms

cheat cheater deceiver slicker beguiler trickster

Hyponyms

quack craniologist phrenologist

Related terms

charlatanism charlatanry

Examples

The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material. Arthur Schopenhauer

A general must be a charlatan. Napoleon Bonaparte

A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading. Leszek Kołakowski

Any scientist who can't explain to an eight-year-old what he is doing is a charlatan. Kurt Vonnegut

People thought I was a charlatan and a nut, [he remembered]. The doctors were against me - they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive. Jack LaLanne

My first meeting with you only confirmed what I first suspected. You are a fraud, a charlatan and a shyster. My favourite kind of person, in fact. Stephen Fry

Close letter words and terms

Charklik Charla charlady charlatanerie charlatanic charlatanical