0 someone who pretends to be someone or something that they are not, or to be able to do something that they cannot:
The university was divided into those people who thought he was a genius and those who thought he was a mountebank.
The potion was dispensed by both physicians and itinerant mountebanks.
He is reminiscent of a fairground mountebank, or perhaps the charlatan wizard Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter.
Study of his character reveals a strong vein of the mountebank and many of his claims seem to have little basis in fact.
