See snake oil in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for snake oil meaning in English (5.8kB)
{
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{
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},
"expansion": "snake oil (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "34 31 25 10",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Medicine",
"orig": "en:Medicine",
"parents": [
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"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "35 24 30 11",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Pharmacy",
"orig": "en:Pharmacy",
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"Pharmacology",
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"Sciences",
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],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea."
],
"id": "en-snake_oil-en-noun-BAjonncX",
"links": [
[
"fraudulent",
"fraudulent"
],
[
"ineffective",
"ineffective"
],
[
"potion",
"potion"
],
[
"nostrum",
"nostrum"
],
[
"panacea",
"panacea"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "87 4 7 3",
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "kvaksalverprodukt"
},
{
"_dis1": "87 4 7 3",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"word": "huijauslääke"
},
{
"_dis1": "87 4 7 3",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "poudre de perlimpinpin"
},
{
"_dis1": "87 4 7 3",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Quacksalberprodukt"
},
{
"_dis1": "87 4 7 3",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "pó de perlimpimpim"
}
]
},
{
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{
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{
"_dis": "3 62 23 13",
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{
"_dis": "3 46 33 18",
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{
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{
"_dis": "35 24 30 11",
"kind": "topical",
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"name": "Pharmacy",
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],
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}
],
"glosses": [
"A traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain."
],
"id": "en-snake_oil-en-noun-yAo-53gQ",
"links": [
[
"traditional",
"traditional"
],
[
"Chinese",
"Chinese"
],
[
"medicine",
"medicine"
],
[
"joint",
"joint"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "1 90 6 3",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "traditional Chinese medicine",
"word": "käärmeöljy"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "34 31 25 10",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Medicine",
"orig": "en:Medicine",
"parents": [
"Biology",
"Sciences",
"All topics",
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],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "35 24 30 11",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Pharmacy",
"orig": "en:Pharmacy",
"parents": [
"Medicine",
"Pharmacology",
"Biology",
"Sciences",
"Biochemistry",
"All topics",
"Chemistry",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"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."
],
"id": "en-snake_oil-en-noun-v7HmbL5F",
"links": [
[
"patent medicine",
"patent medicine"
],
[
"United States",
"United States"
],
[
"snake",
"snake"
],
[
"fat",
"fat"
],
[
"Native American",
"Native American"
],
[
"ailments",
"ailment"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "34 31 25 10",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Medicine",
"orig": "en:Medicine",
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"Biology",
"Sciences",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "35 24 30 11",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Pharmacy",
"orig": "en:Pharmacy",
"parents": [
"Medicine",
"Pharmacology",
"Biology",
"Sciences",
"Biochemistry",
"All topics",
"Chemistry",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3",
"text": "As for the IRP, Secretary of State Grant Shapps continues to peddle snake oil, smoke and mirrors. His reaction to near-universal IRP condemnation from politicians, local and national media, and all but a few rail specialists was to dismiss the lot of us (in the condescending and patronising tone we have now come to expect) as \"critics and naysayers\".",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality."
],
"id": "en-snake_oil-en-noun-zEB4lJvX",
"links": [
[
"exaggerated",
"exaggerated"
],
[
"marketing",
"marketing"
],
[
"questionable",
"questionable"
],
[
"unverifiable",
"unverifiable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-snake oil.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5c/En-au-snake_oil.ogg/En-au-snake_oil.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/En-au-snake_oil.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Snake oil"
],
"word": "snake oil"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English uncountable nouns",
"en:Medicine",
"en:Pharmacy"
],
"head_templates": [
{
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},
"expansion": "snake oil (uncountable)",
"name": "en-noun"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"glosses": [
"A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea."
],
"links": [
[
"fraudulent",
"fraudulent"
],
[
"ineffective",
"ineffective"
],
[
"potion",
"potion"
],
[
"nostrum",
"nostrum"
],
[
"panacea",
"panacea"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum; panacea."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"A traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain."
],
"links": [
[
"traditional",
"traditional"
],
[
"Chinese",
"Chinese"
],
[
"medicine",
"medicine"
],
[
"joint",
"joint"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"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."
],
"links": [
[
"patent medicine",
"patent medicine"
],
[
"United States",
"United States"
],
[
"snake",
"snake"
],
[
"fat",
"fat"
],
[
"Native American",
"Native American"
],
[
"ailments",
"ailment"
]
],
"tags": [
"uncountable"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3",
"text": "As for the IRP, Secretary of State Grant Shapps continues to peddle snake oil, smoke and mirrors. His reaction to near-universal IRP condemnation from politicians, local and national media, and all but a few rail specialists was to dismiss the lot of us (in the condescending and patronising tone we have now come to expect) as \"critics and naysayers\".",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality."
],
"links": [
[
"exaggerated",
"exaggerated"
],
[
"marketing",
"marketing"
],
[
"questionable",
"questionable"
],
[
"unverifiable",
"unverifiable"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"uncountable"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-snake oil.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5c/En-au-snake_oil.ogg/En-au-snake_oil.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/En-au-snake_oil.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "kvaksalverprodukt"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"word": "huijauslääke"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "poudre de perlimpinpin"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Quacksalberprodukt"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fraudulent, ineffective potion or nostrum",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "pó de perlimpimpim"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "traditional Chinese medicine",
"word": "käärmeöljy"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Snake oil"
],
"word": "snake oil"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.