Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pretender to medical knowledge or skill; an ignorant doctor.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare A quack.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a quack doctor; someone who pretends to have medical knowledge

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French médicastre or Italian medicastro, from Latin medicus + -aster.

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Examples

  • One who brags of medicines or salves; a medicaster; a charlatan.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Jack of Kent 2009

  • One who brags of medicines or salves; a medicaster; a charlatan.

    Samuel Johnson on Quackery Jack of Kent 2009

  • Mazarin, like a very unskilful physician, did not observe that the vital organs were decayed, nor had he the skill to support them by the chemical preparations of his predecessor; his only remedy was to let blood, which he drew so plentifully that the patient fell into a lethargy, and our medicaster was yet so stupid as to mistake this lethargy for a real state of health.

    Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete Various

  • The native medicaster, having placed the green leaves on the patient's temples, would be brewing a concoction of emollient simples.

    The Great White Tribe in Filipinia 1914

  • Mazarin, like a very unskilful physician, did not observe that the vital organs were decayed, nor had he the skill to support them by the chemical preparations of his predecessor; his only remedy was to let blood, which he drew so plentifully that the patient fell into a lethargy, and our medicaster was yet so stupid as to mistake this lethargy for a real state of health.

    The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz — Volume 2 [Historic court memoirs] Jean Fran��ois Paul de Gondi de Retz 1646

  • Mazarin, like a very unskilful physician, did not observe that the vital organs were decayed, nor had he the skill to support them by the chemical preparations of his predecessor; his only remedy was to let blood, which he drew so plentifully that the patient fell into a lethargy, and our medicaster was yet so stupid as to mistake this lethargy for a real state of health.

    The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz — Complete [Historic court memoirs] Jean Fran��ois Paul de Gondi de Retz 1646

Comments

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  • A medicaster courts health disaster

    By claiming skills he does not master.

    Should a wordy practitioner

    Who misleads his listener

    Be known far and wide as a lexicaster?

    January 20, 2014