snake oil

noun

1

: any of various substances or mixtures sold (as by a traveling medicine show) as medicine usually without regard to their medical worth or properties

2

: poppycock, bunkum

Examples of snake oil in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That’s just an insane concentration of capital to build infrastructure for what could end up being just another vial of Silicon Valley snake oil. —Allison Morrow, CNN Money, 30 Aug. 2025

And his ultimate war is with Bob, a tech CEO who rants about his haters and has gotten rich off rebranded snake oil and whose obvious corruption has been obscured by his self-mythologizing. —Alison Willmore, Vulture, 29 Aug. 2025

From there, the plot pretzels itself into typical noir convolution, giving us an excuse to meet all sorts of characters, not least a shady local preacher played by Chris Evans, who uses his almost embarrassingly all-American good looks to convey treacle and snake oil. —Daniel Bromfield, Mercury News, 29 Aug. 2025

Louise, in thrall to Vernon’s therapeutic snake oil, has soon abandoned Joe, and this leaves him devastated. —Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 16 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1917, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for snake oil

• aerofoil
• cinquefoil
• hydrofoil
• quatrefoil
• airfoil
• benzoyl
• despoil
• embroil
• etoile
• gargoyle
• recoil
• subsoil

Medical Definition

snake oil

noun

: any of various substances or mixtures sold (as by a traveling medicine show) as medicine usually without having had the claims of their medical worth or properties substantiated by scientific tests