quack
Meanings
Plural: quacks
Noun
- an untrained person who pretends to be a physician and who dispenses medical advice
- the harsh sound of a duck
- The sound made by a duck.
- A fraudulent healer, especially a bombastic peddler in worthless treatments, a doctor who makes false diagnoses for monetary benefit, or an untrained or poorly trained doctor who uses fraudulent credentials to attract patients
- Any similar charlatan or incompetent professional.
- Any doctor.
Verb
- utter quacking noises
- "The ducks quacked"
- act as a medical quack or a charlatan
- To make a noise like a duck.
- Of a queen bee: to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development.
- To practice or commit quackery (fraudulent medicine).
- To make vain and loud pretensions.
Adjective Satellite
- medically unqualified
- "a quack doctor"
Intj
- A duck's quack.
Adj
- Falsely presented as having medicinal powers.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English *quacken, queken (“to croak like a frog; make a noise like a duck, goose, or quail”), from quack, qwacke, quek, queke (“quack”, interjection and noun), also kek, keke, whec-, partly of imitative origin and partly from Middle Dutch quacken (“to croak, quack”), from Old Dutch *kwaken (“to croak, quack”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwakōn, from Proto-Germanic *kwakaną, *kwakōną (“to croak”), of imitative origin. Cognate with Saterland Frisian kwoakje, kwaakje (“to quack”), Middle Low German quaken (“to quack, croak”), German quaken (“to quack, croak”), Danish kvække (“to croak”), Swedish kväka (“to croak, quackle”), Norwegian kvekke (“to croak”), Icelandic kvaka (“to twitter, chirp, quack”).
Synonyms
boast, medicaster, pharmacopole, quacksalver, snake-oil salesman
Scrabble Score: 20
quack is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordquack is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
quack is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary