Meaning
A fraudulent or worthless remedy, and by extension any product, scheme or claim sold with false promises; a snake-oil salesman is someone who knowingly peddles such things. The word alleges deliberate deception, not mere disappointment. Strongly negative; implies knowing fraud rather than honest failure. Regional use: American English in origin; now General English.
Origin
Genuine snake oil came first: Chinese labourers on the American railroads in the 19th century used oil rendered from Chinese water snakes, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and, as NPR and Smithsonian Magazine both recount, actually reduced inflammation. American imitators produced the fakes. The most famous, Clark Stanley, the self-styled 'Rattlesnake King', launched Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, slaughtering rattlesnakes on stage and claiming to have learned the recipe from a Hopi healer. Under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, federal investigators eventually seized and analysed his liniment, finding it contained no snake oil at all, just mineral oil, beef fat, red pepper and turpentine, and fined him twenty dollars (Smithsonian dates the analysis to 1917; some other accounts say 1916). The exposure of such products fixed snake oil in the language as the standing metaphor for quack medicine and, later, for fraudulent selling of any kind.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- selling snake oil
- snake oil merchant
- snake-oil peddler
- snake-oil salesman
Usage Examples
- The seminar promised miracle investment returns, but it was pure snake oil.
- Regulators accused the supplement company of selling little more than snake oil.
- Any pitch that guarantees twenty percent returns a year deserves the snake-oil label.