Saltimbanco

//sæltɪmˈbæŋkəʊ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A quack doctor, a fraud.

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian saltimbanco. Used thus in English because of the association with street performers, seen by the settled population in English-speaking culture as not to be trusted. A more usual and more accurate English word, derived from similar sources, is mountebank.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.