Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Mountebank \Mount"e*bank\, n. [It. montimbanco, montambanco;
   montare to mount + in in, upon + banco bench. See {Mount},
   and 4th {Bank}.]
   1. One who mounts a bench or stage in the market or other
      public place, boasts of his skill in curing diseases, and
      vends medicines which he pretends are infalliable
      remedies; a quack doctor.

            Such is the weakness and easy credulity of men, that
            a mountebank . . . is preferred before an able
            physician.                            --Whitlock.

   2. Any boastful or false pretender; a charlatan; a quack.

            Nothing so impossible in nature but mountebanks will
            undertake.                            --Arbuthnot.

Mountebank \Mount"e*bank\, v. t.
   To cheat by boasting and false pretenses; to gull. [R.]
   --Shak.

Mountebank \Mount"e*bank\, v. i.
   To play the mountebank.

Source : WordNet®

mountebank
     n : a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with
         tricks or jokes [syn: {charlatan}]