snake-oil

verb

To dupe or con.

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Meanings

verbsnake-oil (third-person singular simple present snake-oils, present participle snake-oiling, simple past and past participle snake-oiled)

present singular third person snake-oils · participle present snake-oiling · participle past snake-oiled · past snake-oiled

  1. informaltransitiveTo dupe or con.

    And this is particularly so for many of our women students who have been hustled and snake-oiled to deny the validity of their intellects.

    1995, Nancy Owen Nelson, editor, Private Voices, Public Lives
    1 more example

    Before she had a chance to deal with her hangover, he was on the phone snake-oiling her into the first of what would be many ill-fated fraud cases.

    2013, Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge, Vintage, published 2014, page 23

Origin

From snake oil.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

snake-oil. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snake-oil

MLA

“snake-oil.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snake-oil. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “snake-oil,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snake-oil.

Source: snake-oil on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.