charlatan
SHAR-luh-tun · noun
A person who falsely claims special knowledge, skill, or expertise.
Memory connection
Picture “charlatan’s tin cure”
A dazzling salesman offers tin pills as a universal cure. His confidence is polished, but his expertise and medicine are fake.
The sound cue helps you reach the scene; the action in the scene carries you from the scene to the definition.
Use it accurately
Meaning in context
The investigation exposed the supposed healer as a charlatan with no medical training.
Investors eventually realized that the celebrated adviser was a charlatan.
Charlatan targets fraudulent expertise or professional claims, especially when someone performs confidence to deceive an audience.
Common patterns
- expose a charlatan
- a political charlatan
- dismissed as a charlatan
Quick check
Can you retrieve the meaning?
What reveals someone as a charlatan?
Choose an answer, then explain it in your own words.