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

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

With advances in pharmacology, the time had come for an agency to inform the public about the differences between medicine and snake oil. —Thomas R. Insel, STAT, 12 Apr. 2023

That’s called drinking the snake oil. —Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 20 Mar. 2023

The snake oil salesmen are out in force this year. —Peter Greene, Forbes, 5 June 2021

This snake oil salesman must be defeated!!! —Emily Anderson Stern, The Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Oct. 2022

And there’s a lot of snake oil out there. —Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 8 June 2022

Now that his top seed 76ers have crashed and burned out of the conference semis, repeatedly blowing large or massive leads and falling at home three times in one series, would those who defended him to the death here finally admit that Doc Rivers is the world’s greatest snake oil salesman? —Los Angeles Times, 27 June 2021

Part of the agency’s mandate is to prevent drug companies from profiting by selling the equivalent of snake oil. —Dan Greene, IEEE Spectrum, 21 Nov. 2018

Photograph: Astell & Kern Accessories are where the vast majority of audio snake oil shows up. —Parker Hall, WIRED, 9 Mar. 2023

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Word History

First Known Use

1917, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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