one who prates much in commendation of himself; and makes unwarrantable pretensions to skill; originally an empiric or quack, a retailer of medicines on a public stage, who attracted notice by his buffooneries, feats of activity, and the like. The word, according to Calepine, comes from the Italian ceretano, from Ceretum, a town near Spoleto, where these impostors are said to have first appeared. Ménage, however, derives it from ciarlatano, and that from circulatorius or circulator, a mountebank.