Quacksalvers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who make false claims about their medical or healing abilities, often selling questionable remedies or potions
2. people who peddle unproven treatments as if they were effective solutions
3. charlatans who deceive others into believing in their fictitious qualifications and fraudulent cures

Etymology: "Quacksalver" began as a Dutch word for a travelling seller of ointments. Its first part, "kwaken" in modern Dutch, meant "to boast" or "to croak", the same croaking sound that gave us "quack" for a duck. Its second part, "salve", was an ointment. So a "quacksalver" was literally a boaster who sold salves, and the loud patter of the market stall was built into the name itself. English borrowed the word from Dutch, and the sense of the boasting remained. The earlier Middle Dutch form "quacsalven" could be used as either a noun or a verb, though the English noun is the form that took hold. Over time the boaster's loud promises came to define the trade, and the word narrowed to mean someone who falsely claims medical skill. "Quacksalvers" is simply the plural, naming more than one such seller. The shortened word "quack", which the Dutch compound also contributed to, is the form most people use today.

Synonyms: charlatans, frauds, hucksters

Antonyms: professionals, experts