- 1
A mountebank is a cheat — but not a quiet one. The old picture is a man who climbs onto a wooden bench in the street and shouts about a wonderful medicine that will fix everything. People gather. He talks well. The medicine is fake. Today you will almost never hear the word in a shop or in classroom chat. It lives in books, in sharp essays, in a slightly old-fashioned voice. When a writer calls someone a mountebank, they mean a fraud: someone who performs honesty while they trick you. Though actually, it is a hard word and a heavy charge; you would not use it for a child who tells a small lie, or for a shop that merely . There is also a rarer verb, to mountebank, meaning to trick people in that way, but the noun is what you will meet.
江湖郎中、騙子
組成From old Italian montambanco, a quack who climbs onto a bench to shout about his wares; shortened from monta-in-banco, “mount on a bench.”
同家族的字
- mountthe Italian piece monta means the same thing: to get up onto something
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
mountebanknoun/ˈmaʊntəˌbæŋk/
- 1
One who sells dubious medicines.
- She is abus'd, ſtolne from me, and corrupted / By Spels, and Medicines, bought of Mountebanks
- There is nothing ſo impoſſible in Nature, but Mountebanks vvill undertake; nothing ſo incredible but they vvill affirm: Mrs. Bull’s Condition vvas look’d upon as deſperate by all the Men of Art; then Signior Cavallo judged it vvas high time for him to interpoſe, he bragg’d that he had an infallible Ointment and Plaiſter, vvhich being applied to the Sore vvould Cure it in a fevv Days; […]
- 2
One who sells by deception; a con artist.
- Donne was a mountebank who wrapped up his lack of meaning in hard words.
- Are you allowing yourselves to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams? This man is an imposter and the Galactic Spirit he speaks of a fraud of the imagination devised to——
- 3
Any boastful, false pretender.
- They ſay this towne is full of coſenage: / As nimble Iuglers that deceiue the eie: / Darke working Sorcerers that change the minde: / Soule-killing Witches that deforme the bodie: / Diſguiſed Cheaters, prating Mountebankes, / And manie ſuch like liberties of ſinne:
- As if Divinity had catch'd / The Itch, of purpose to be scratch'd; / Or, like a Mountebank, did wound / And stab her self with doubts profound, / Only to shew with how small pain / The sores of faith are cur'd again […]
- 4
obsoleteAn acrobat.
mountebankverb/ˈmaʊntəˌbæŋk/
- 1
To act as a mountebank.
- 2
To cheat by boasting and false pretenses.
- Ile Mountebanke their Loues, / Cogge their Hearts from them,
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。