A hawker of quack medicines and nostrums who attracts customers with stories, jokes, or tricks (American Heritage).
"Along with them
They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
a living dead man. This pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,
And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 'twere, out-facing me,
Cries out, I was possessed."
William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1594).
No comments:
Post a Comment