The Etymology of Charlatan
Charlatan is a fine example of a place-name turning into a personality.βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ The Italian word ciarlatano was originally cerretano, an inhabitant of Cerreto di Spoleto, a small Umbrian town whose travelling pedlars and pardoners had become notorious across late-medieval Italy for hawking dubious medicines, fake relics, and forged papal indulgences. The reputation of these men was so durable that cerretano came to mean any wandering fraud. The form was then reshaped β by either popular etymology or deliberate punning β under the influence of the Italian verb ciarlare (to chatter, to patter), producing ciarlatano with the merged sense of a smooth-talking pretender who gathers a crowd with patter and sells them lies. French borrowed the word in the 16th century as charlatan, and English took it from French in 1618. The root has not lost its bite: the modern charlatan is still someone who talks expertly about things he does not know.