snake-oil

See also: snake oil

English

Etymology

From snake oil.

Verb

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

  1. (informal, transitive) To dupe or con.
    • 1995, Nancy Owen Nelson, editor, Private Voices, Public Lives:
      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.
    • 2013, Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge, Vintage, published 2014, page 23:
      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.
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