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

Along Mexico Border To Hold Migrants, Report Says The Federal Reserve Cuts GDP Projections As Inflation Stays Too High Comfort Isn’t the Answer Leadership habits and personality labels—alongside countless snake oil assessments—offer a tempting promise of simplicity. —Dan Pontefract, Forbes, 19 Mar. 2025

Or to see Netflix’s imperfect Apple Cider Vinegar draw a line from that greed to the snake oil salespeople preying on desperate folks who no longer feel the medical establishment has their best interests at heart. —Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019

Gibson is still an imperfect, if attention-grabbing, vehicle into a wider survey of why people, especially women, are so drawn to snake oil. —Alison Herman, Variety, 6 Feb. 2025

So goes every health grift, preached by everyone from snake oil salesmen to chumbox clickbait to, probably, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the not-too-distant future. —Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019

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