quackest
English
[edit]Adjective
[edit]quackest
- (rare, humorous) superlative form of quack: most quack.
- 1916 August 5, Henry D. Estabrook, “Truth in Advertising [advertisement]”, in The Duluth Herald, volume XXXIV, number 102, Duluth, Minn.: The Herald Company, →OCLC, page 6:
- [Y]ou have undertaken to rid all our newspapers and periodicals of untrue, unclean and dishonest advertisements. It seems to me that you have already gained your victory and henceforth have only to guard the fruits of it, for, recently I examined as many newspapers and magazines as I could lay hands on just to see if I could find in them those old, alluring advertisements, ranging from the quack doctor to the quacker promoter and the quackest oracle of fate. There was nothing doing—everything as clean as a hound's tooth and as wholesome as sunshine.
- 1948, The Prospect before Us: Some Thoughts on the Future, London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., →OCLC, page 102:
- [T]he common man, who until then had suffered dumbly and indolently, might be forced to pay attention. Finding, perhaps, that there is no solution either in politics or in any existing religion, he may cling to the diagnosis of the last and quackest of his doctors: he may believe that art can save himself and the world.
- 1997, Jenny Uglow, “Allegories of Healing”, in William Hogarth: A Life and a World, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, page 506:
- [William] Hogarth might have felt some sympathy for [Sally] Mapp as an 'irregular' expert besting pomposity, but this is topped by his sheer relish for her as the Quackest Quack of all, and female to boot. In Hogarth's print the dark goddess rules over her court of fools, men who have taken over the ancient realm of women's healing, and now profit from the people's ills and credulity.