Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Merry-andrew

Merry-andrew (mer"ry-an"dru) , noun

One whose business is to make sport for others; a buffoon; a zany; especially, one who attends a mountebank or quack doctor.

This term is said to have originated from one Andrew Borde, an English physician of the 16th century, who gained patients by facetious speeches to the multitude.