A charlatan is a person practising quackery or some
similar confidence
trick in order to obtain money or advantage via some form of
pretence or
deception.
The word comes from French
charlatan, a seller of medicines who might advertise his
presence with music and an outdoor stage show. The most well known
of the Parisian charlatans was Tabarin who set up
a stage in the Place Dauphin, Paris in 1618, and whose commedia
dell'arte inspired skits and whose farces inspired Molière.
Ultimately, etymologists trace "charlatan" from either the Italian
ciarlare, to prattle; or from Cerretano, a
resident of Cerreto, a
village in Umbria, known for its
quacks.[1]
In usage, a subtle difference is drawn between the charlatan and
other kinds of confidence people. The charlatan is usually a
salesperson. He does not
try to create a personal relationship with his marks, or set up an
elaborate hoax using roleplaying.
Rather, the person called a charlatan is being accused of resorting
to quackery, pseudoscience, or
some knowingly employed bogus means of impressing people in order
to swindle his victims by
selling them worthless nostrums
and similar goods or services that will not deliver on the promises
made for them. The word calls forth the image of an old-time
medicine show
operator, who has long left town by the time the people who bought
his snake oil tonic realize that it does
not perform as advertised.
In reported spiritual communications, a charlatan is a person
who fakes evidence that a spirit is "making contact" with the
medium and seekers. This has been challenged successfully by
skeptics who wrote passwords and gave them to people of trust,
containing a password that should be spoken by the person if he
ever tried to make contact, to validate the truth of the claim. No
such claim has been verified. For example, Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato
and magician Houdini.
Synonyms for "charlatan"
include "mountebank", "shyster",
and "quack".
"Mountebank" comes
from the Italian
montambanco or montimbanco based on the phrase
monta in banco - literally referring to the action of a
seller of dubious medicines getting up on a bench to address his
audience of potential customers.[2]
"Quack" is a reference to "quackery" or
the practice of dubious medicine.
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char·la·tan 
/ˈʃɑrlətn/ Pronunciation
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Pronunciation[shahr-luh-tn] Pronunciation
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