quack n.1
1. in senses of charlatanry [abbr. of SE quacksalver, one who ‘quacks’ mendaciously about the quality of their medicines and salves].
(a) an incompetent medical charlatan; thus quacky adj.
| [ | ![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | School of Abuse (1868) 53: No better than an Apothecaries Shop, of pestilent Drugges; a quacke-saluers Budget of filthy receites]. |
| [ | | Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 2: Don Lucifer (being the Justice for that County, where the Brimstone mines are,) had better dooings, and more rapping at his gates, than all the Doctors and Empericall Quack-saluers of ten cities haue at theirs in a great Plague-time]. |
| Virgin Widow II i: Cornelius Quack, lately Pothecary to Artesio, who is about to get a License to be a Mountebank. | |
| ‘Litany upon Occasion of a Journey to Bath’ in (1969) 144: An old German quack y-clept Dr Bavie, / Whose skill is not half so much as his knav’ry. | |
| Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 135: May he at last fall worse than Sea-sick, / And find no Quack to give him Physick. | |
| New Academy of Complements 88: Quacks kill themselves with inventing Purgations. | |
| ‘New German Doctor’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 199: We hear of some Quacks are for curing of claps. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Teagueland Jests I 123: [N]ot Money enough to pay the Quack. | |
| Lost Lover V i: He’s a meer Quack [...] if use make use of him, he’l certainly be the Death of you. | |
| London Spy I 12: Had not my Friend told me ’twas a Coffee-House, I should have took it for Quacks-Hall, or the Parlour of some Eminent Mountebank. | |
| Female Tatler (1992) (7) 15: A sophister may pass upon the generality for a man of learning, a prating quack for a great physician. | |
| in Pills to Purge Melancholy V 309: Mare prancing, Boats flying, Quacks lying. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Tea-table Misc. (1733) IV 426: The plush-coated quack, who, his fees to enlarge, Kills people by licence, and at their own charge. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c 361: Quacks pretend to Honesty! | |
| Roderick Random (1979) 116: She had pawned or sold everything that belonged to her, to satisfy that rapacious quack. | |
| Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 163: I am very sorry to find a man of your worship’s – Sir Jacob, a promoter of puffs; an encourager of quacks, Sir Jacob. | |
| Cheats of London Exposed 87: A great wig and significant strut have long composed a physician [...] and very quacks follow the example. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 28 Apr.-5 May n.p.: She expired in great agonies, having been tortured by a variety of Quacks. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Quack An ungraduated ignorant pretender to skill in physic, a vender of nostrums. |
| New Cheats of London Exposed 22: quacks These are arrogant miscreants, that rob thousands, not only of their money but their health. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Yankey in London 136: There are, in London, a species of mechanical quacks [...] They undertake to furnish the blind with artificial eyes, and the cripple with arms and legs. | |
| ‘Quack Doctor’ Brahamian Songster 4: [title]. | |
| Doctor Syntax, Consolation (1868) 120/2: The Booby quack I have dismiss’d. | |
| ‘Daniel Dab’ in Egan Bk of Sports (1832) 15: So of a quack he learned to bleed, / And draw teeth with precision. | |
| ‘“Taking Off” of Prince Albert’s Inexpressibles’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 36: Ignorant and worthless foreign quacks are fostered and encouraged. | |
| N.Y. Sporting Whip 25 Feb. n.p.: We have ‘Quacks, their lives and practices’. | |
| Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Jan. 4/1: Unmask a quack? or trace the ways / Of bubble Projector’s awful maze? | |
| Gaslight and Daylight 36: He is [...] not so scientifically unintelligible as the quacks you see in the Champs Elysées. | |
| ‘New Streets Act’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 88: Any quack doctor’s butler [...] shall be treated as a treasonable offender. | |
| Glasgow Herald 14 Dec. 6/1: Time was, a quack did the press attack, / When he brought his legal action; / And twelve fools gave the dirty knave, / A swinging satisfaction. | |
| Innocents at Home 394: Compelling every incoming Chinaman to be vaccinated [...] and pay a duly appointed quack (no decent doctor would defile himself with such legalized robbery) ten dollars. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Mar. 1/2: If people like to go to medical quacks instead of to good doctors and get themselves into the dissecting room, that is their affair. | |
| Atlantic Monthly Dec. 831: The tone in which people say, ‘Oh, he’s a politician,’ is not that in which they say, ‘He’s a doctor,’ or ‘He’s a lawyer;’ it sounds much more like that which accompanies the word ‘shyster’ or ‘quack’. | |
| N.-Y. American 25 Dec. in Unforgettable Season (1981) 11: Every quack in the country hounding the life out of you. | |
| From Coast to Coast with Jack London 86: The ex-quack promptly proved himself to be an even worse moral degenerate than we had already judged him to be by his admissions. | |
| Beyond the Horizon III i: No thanks to that old fool of a country quack. | |
| Ulysses 146: That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. | |
| Tropic of Cancer (1963) 146: These are the quacks who have their fingers on the pulse of the world. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 9: Quack: Unregistered doctor. | |
| Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 132: I am a quack. That is to say I do things which doctors in their small frightened selfish guild cannot accomplish. | |
| Alcoholics (1993) 7: I’m a horse-doctor? [...] I’m a diploma-mill quack? | |
| Mad mag. July 28: I’ve got no doctor’s degree / I’m just a quack / A diploma I lack. | |
| Time Was (1981) Act I: You stupid quack. | |
| Skin Tight 273: He’s the quack who gave her the encapsulated whatchamacallits. | |
| Indep. Rev. 12 June 12: German science was open house for cranks, quacks – and genuine alternatives. | |
| Observer Mag. 6 Feb. 94: A quack? People have called me worse than that. | |
| Widespread Panic 54: A man some quack diced and dehomoized. |
(b) (also quacker) a doctor, irrespective of their abilities.
| Country-Wife I i: A quack is as fit for a pimp as a midwife for a bawd; they are still but in their way both helpers of nature. | |
| Narrative of Street-Robberies 55: For Cure from East to West the Wretch shall stray, / And ever be to Quacks and Knaves a Prey. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 152: The poor Quack-Salver was willing to preserve what he had. | |
| Trial of Elizabeth Canning in Howell State Trials (1816) 502: Were you not under the care of any surgeon, or quack?—No, I was not. | |
| Bankrupt II ii: They treat us, Master Resource, like a couple of quacks, never apply but in desperate cases. | |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 343: Nestor obeys, and sans delay / Convey’d the wounded quack away. | |
| Medical Student 84: Q were the Quacks, who cure stammer and squint. | |
| Brisbane Courier 2 Dec.5/7: In the bush he [a Kanaka] is prone to sickness [...] This gives the ‘jackaroos’ an opportunity of trying their hands as ‘quack,’ and, whatever the result may be, it is always beneficial, at least to the squatter. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Aug. 2/1: It is refreshing to hear a distinguished medical man called plain ‘Mr.’ in face of the fact that every qualified quack is here dubbed Dr. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 63: Quacks, doctors. | |
| diary 21 Sept. 🌐 Both feet went crook so went to see the quack. He never even looked at them [...] I’m a bally malingerer I suppose. | |
| Aussie (France) 12 Mar. back cover: How to Bluff the Quack. | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: quack. A Medical Officer. | |
| Capricornia (1939) 126: The noo quack says he’s got a crook heart. | |
| Pal Joey 106: Still getting bills from that quack. | |
| ‘Saint in Silver’ in Goulart (1967) 99: ‘He went out for a doctor.’ [...] ‘A quack,’ said the captain. | |
| Bluey & Curley 16 May [synd. cartoon strip] The quacks have got some new stuff they rub on the stump. | |
| Small Time Crooks 36: He asked the quack to hold back the shot until after he could talk to his boys. | |
| Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 104: ‘I’ve got to get to my quack’s’. | |
| letter 3 May in Proud Highway (1997) 515: I think the quacks have a vested interest in keeping us all scared half to death. | |
| Picture Palace 250: The quack examined me. | |
| Complete Barry McKenzie 11: Was that quack pulling my leg? | |
| Indep. Rev. 11 Dec. 4: An epidemic worse than flu / Is terrifying our quacks. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 37: Depression and that [...] I’d never, ever go and see the quack about it. | |
| Intractable [ebook] The Grafton Quack, was a walking, talking hypocrisy of the Hippocratic Oath. | |
| Man-Eating Typewriter 196: [A] Venetian plague-quacker’s mask [ibid.] 197: The quacks scrutinized my fizzer. |
(c) a charlatan (other than in a medical context).
| Peregrine Pickle (1964) 554: He was a silly impertinent fellow, and a mere quack in his profession. | |
| Seven Curses of London 409: ‘No knowledge of racing matters is requisite on the part of the investor,’ writes this quack. | |
| Hartlepool Northern Dly Mail 25 Nov. 3/6: Lord E. was showy. He had a good deal of the quack about him. So much for Lord Ellenborough hooroo! (Polish him off — hurroo!). | |
| in Living London (1883) Apr. 144: He was incessantly abused and ridiculed as a quack, a pretender, and a humbug. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Mar. 20/3: The A.N.A. is composed mainly of self-advertising political quacks, and its chief idea is a terror of ever being suspected of doing anything or thinking anything that would not be acceptable to the Mother Grundies of piety-politics. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 18/1: To be serious: What’s the sum / Total of this rum-ti-tum, / All this bounding ’Murkan slang / Gospel with a Yankee twang? / Does the soul the faster trudge / Hustled by such foolish ‘fudge,’ / Prodded in her mystic home / By the fussy quacks who roam. | |
| Sexus (1969) 321: The other abandoned his medical practice and finally put himself into the hands of a quack, yours truly. He did it deliberately knowing I had no qualifications. | |
| Shiralee 19: Thinking of that old quack, that old black bull-merchant. | |
| letter 16 Feb. Proud Highway (1997) 321: I quickly dealt him off as a quack. | |
| Seize the Time 368: How do you know some quack didn’t send it [i.e. a fraudulent ‘threat’]. |
2. (also quacker, quackler) a duck.
| Crabtree Lectures 191: Mort. [R]ather then want Rum-peck, or Beane boose, mill the Cacklers, coy the Quack, or Duds. | |
| Crabtree Lectures 191: Cove. But sto Mort: what if I should bee Cloyed in the milling of Cacklers, Quacklers, or Duds, or nipping a Bung, and so be cloyed, & budged to the Naskin. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 75: Jest pipe her – she turns her ogles up like a croaking quacker. | |
| Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/2: Vy, blow me, if he dident turn up his blinkers (eyes) like a croaking quacker (dying duck), and said, ‘if you doesn’t give hover, I’ll get my mother to mill your napper (punch your head). | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 22/4: Hardly had her eyes closed, than the champion mean woman of Boulia slipped into the invalid’s duck, and by the time the sleeper had awakened, there wasn’t enough of the defunct ‘quacker’ left to feed a blow-fly. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 63: Quacks, ducks. | |
| Bird o’ Freedom n.p.: I send her herewith a couple of quacks [B&L]. | |
| ‘Grandfather’s Courtship’ in Roderick (1972) 872: They was about twice as big as an ordinary Quack, on’y they didn’t quack. | |
| NY Tribune 30 Nov. 24/2: I wonder if those Quacks ate all the food here. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | IOL News (Western Cape) 15 June 🌐 Quacks [...] a peaceful outing to feed ducks, geese a\nd swans. | |
| Times 30 Apr. 19: [headline] Love a duck - the quackers race that went global. |
3. (Aus.) punning on sense 2, a ‘duck’, i.e. the score of zero in cricket.
| Coburg Leader (Vic.) 3 Nov. 2/4: They Say [...] Stephenson made a ‘quack’ for Belmonts last Saturday. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 13 Nov. 5/6: Clem T., our flash little cricketer, made a quack. |
4. (US black) a homosexual [? he ‘ducks down’ for sex].
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 195: Peeping the Village scene from the outside, the artists, the quacks, the would-be Bohemians. | |
| Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. |
5. (US drugs) a habitual cocaine user [ref. to their constant verbal ‘quacking’].
| Central Sl. 43: quacks Caineheads. Individuals hooked on cocaine. |
6. an act of breaking wind.
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: quack n. A short, sharp botty burp often followed by an apologetic ‘Oops!’. |
In derivatives
charlatanry.
| Nocturnal Revels I 124: Having dismissed Quacks and Quackery, and I hope fairly got rid of them. | |
 | Egan’s Life in London 19 Sept. 2/2: There is too much quackery in your religion; your pamphlet is full of nonsense. | |
| London Dispatch 5 Aug. 8/4: On Quackery — Quackery has been described as ‘mean, bad acts in physic — deceit’. | |
| Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Feb. 1/4: Quackery in any shape should be avoided, and the reign of humbug can never last long. | |
| Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 13 May n.p.: [T]hat learned doctor that proposed to delivery a lecture oln ‘quackery’. | |
| Hereford Jrnl 2 Jan. 3/3: The investigation would lead to a discontinuance of the system of quackery which prevails [in] the Forest of Dean. | |
| Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Jan. 2/1: ‘There's a hook at the end / Of your promising scheme that savours of quackery’. | |
| Bury Times 14 Feb. 1/5: [advert] No Quackery! No Quackery! The Abernethian Family of Aperient and Digestive Pills. | |
| Blackburn Times 7 July 4/5: Quackery unwashed [...] Quacks, Quackery, and the New Medical Act. | |
| Waterford Chron. 18 Sept. 4/5: The very essence of quackery is secrecy. | |
| Army & Navy Gaz. (London) 18 June 8/1: Rvelations of Quacks and Quackery. | |
| Yorks. Eve. Press 29 Sept. 2/2: [advert] Beware of Quackery ...Use St Jacobs Oil. | |
| Lincs. Echo 31 Oct. 2/1: [advert] No Quackery [...] Many Advertised Nostrums only make Ecrema [sic] worse. | |
| Broadway Brevities Aug. 12: It seems that his genius for quackery is equalled only by his genius for duplicity, for he escaped from every one of his unlawful enterprises with no more than the punishment of a [...] fine. |