Usually means: Product falsely claimed to cure.
Definitions Related words Phrases Mentions
We found 24 dictionaries that define the word snake oil:

General (19 matching dictionaries)
  1. snake oil: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
  2. snake oil: Merriam-Webster
  3. snake oil: Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
  4. snake oil: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
  5. snake oil: Collins English Dictionary
  6. snake oil: Vocabulary.com
  7. snake-oil: Wordnik
  8. snake oil: Wiktionary
  9. snake oil: The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus
  10. snake oil: Infoplease Dictionary
  11. snake-oil, snake oil: Dictionary.com
  12. Snake Oil, Snake-oil, Snake oil (cryptography), Snake oil (disambiguation), Snake oil: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
  13. snake oil: Rhymezone
  14. snake oil: FreeDictionary.org
  15. snake oil: Mnemonic Dictionary
  16. Snake Oil: The Word Detective
  17. snake oil: TheFreeDictionary.com

Business (1 matching dictionary)
  1. BusinessDictionary.com (No longer online)

Computing (2 matching dictionaries)
  1. Webopedia (No longer online)
  2. Snake-oil, snake oil: Encyclopedia

Medicine (1 matching dictionary)
  1. snake oil: Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary

Miscellaneous (1 matching dictionary)
  1. snake oil: Idioms

(Note: See snake_oils as well.)

Definitions from Wiktionary (snake oil)

noun:  (idiomatic) A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea.
noun:  A traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain.
noun:  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.
noun:  (idiomatic) Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality.

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