snake oil

noun

Meaning

A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea.
A traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain.
A type of 19th-century patent medicine sold in the United States that claimed to contain snake fat, supposedly a Native American remedy for various ailments.
Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality.
To dupe or con.

Etymology / origin

No prose etymology has been added yet.

No ancestor words have been linked yet.

Related words

panacea(English)elixir(English)cure-all(English)panpharmacon(English)wonder drug(English)nostrum(English)nostrum remedium(English)balm of gilead(English)

Descendant words

No descendant words have been linked yet.

Sources

DictionaryAPI.dev English dictionary data