How to Use charlatan in a Sentence

charlatan

noun
  • Then give the land back, you pompous charlatans.
    — Joe Soucheray, Twin Cities, 2 May 2026
  • And for that, we were called fear mongers, charlatans, and scam artists.
    — Eric Spitznagel, Popular Mechanics, 27 Dec. 2019
  • What if the person claiming to be your soul mate is a charlatan?
    — Washington Post, 4 Oct. 2020
  • But does that mean Boyce Watkins is a con artist or a charlatan?
    — Michael Harriot, The Root, 6 Feb. 2018
  • All of us already know that Trump is a charlatan, a con man, a fool.
    — Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2020
  • And regardless of what all the charlatans will tell you, there is no magic cure.
    — Ellie Delano, Woman's Day, 2 Apr. 2013
  • One who comes to her full power when she is exiled by a charlatan, by a cruel leader.
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 26 Nov. 2024
  • And the problem clearly goes deeper than the charlatan-in-chief.
    — Helen Ubiñas, Philly.com, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Hinton Rowan Helper was one such, a bit of a charlatan with a streak of genius.
    — Charles R. Morris, WSJ, 8 Jan. 2019
  • In Simpson’s just-the-facts-ma’am telling, Browder is a charlatan.
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 13 Jan. 2018
  • His account of the charlatans of digital influence rings true to me.
    — Clint Watts, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2019
  • This group in particular should have known this and declined to be played by such an obvious charlatan.
    — Keith Bromery, Sun Sentinel, 8 Aug. 2024
  • The good, sincere members would flourish and the charlatans, the folks who over-promise to their constituents, would not.
    — Gary Franks, Boston Herald, 20 Jan. 2024
  • Their tactics worked and, over time, the pejorative meaning of charlatan stuck.
    — Elizabeth Heath, Discover Magazine, 15 Feb. 2023
  • There was too much history for anyone to dismantle, let alone a charlatan like Hitler.
    — Luke Berryman, New York Daily News, 27 Feb. 2025
  • Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit taught us how to separate good science from the work of charlatans.
    — Big Think, 10 Feb. 2026
  • But that may only leave a vacuum to be filled by the next glittery charlatan to catch the media’s attention.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2023
  • There are many ethical and honest and capable mediums out there, but there are also a lot of charlatans, and this is their hook.
    — Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2025
  • Famously, the Wizard is a charlatan in every version of the text.
    — Bethy Squires, Vulture, 30 Aug. 2025
  • These Christians have fallen for a cut-rate King David, a charlatan Solomon, a false prophet.
    — Sarah Jones, The New Republic, 7 June 2018
  • In his races, Perot provided a road map for a populist charlatan to reach the White House.
    — Steve Chapman, chicagotribune.com, 9 July 2019
  • Reb Berish had many times made up his mind not to have any more conversations with his boarder, the charlatan who had gone through hell and remained no good.
    — Ben Taub, The New Yorker, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Neither a charlatan nor a virtuoso, Michael Bay is simply Michael Bay.
    — Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Dec. 2019
  • Here the prime character is Theodor Morell, Hitler’s private physician, a slick and fawning charlatan.
    — Dagmar Herzog, New York Times, 27 Mar. 2017
  • For them, the Nazarene is not a charlatan, but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel.
    — Daniel Burke, NPR, 9 May 2025
  • To this day, a portion of the left-wing Democratic elite views Obama as a charlatan who hoodwinked their voters into supporting him.
    — Ben Smith, semafor.com, 28 Apr. 2026
  • The twist is that the kids and their biological dad, a guy who happens to be the object of a cruel charlatan queen’s (Sylvia Hoeks) obsession, can see.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Macfadyen’s Guiteau is an obvious charlatan; a man so easy to peg as a bad seed that a bank manager remembers him from a single confrontation five years earlier.
    — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 6 Nov. 2025
  • Others estimate that $500 billion in federal spending is diverted by charlatans each year.
    — Las Vegas Review-Journal, Twin Cities, 7 June 2026
  • The 2020 Democrats are a party of kooks and retreads and charlatans, now reduced to hoping for a pandemic of the coronavirus to give them any room to attack the incumbent.
    — Conrad Black, National Review, 11 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'charlatan.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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