Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
noun
A quack doctor; someone who pretends to have medical knowledge.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dated, literary
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From French médicastre or Italian medicastro, from Late Latin medicaster, from Latin medicus (“a doctor, a physician; a surgeon”) + -aster (suffix forming nouns expressing incomplete resemblance, which are thus usually pejorative).
Across languages
20 source translations are retained for this English entry.
