Definition for Snake Oil
You've probably heard people refer to "snake oil" when talking about some medication or remedy that didn't work for them. The term can mean different things depending on what context it's used in.
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Real Snake Oil
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There is, in fact, such a thing as "snake oil," according to the Skeptical Inquirer, which reports that rattlesnake oil was once sold and valued for its medicinal properties and that some Native American tribes used it to treat rheumatism. Over time, snake oil was diluted with other liquids and continued to be sold as snake oil, and eventually the dilution became so great that often there was no actual snake oil in bottles claimed to contain the oil.
Modern Usage
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When actual snake oil was still sold, the term actually referred to real snake oil. However, as fake snake oil was increasingly peddled, people began referring to snake oil as something entirely different.
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Common Usage
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The term "snake oil" is most commonly used in the English language today to refer to any or a wide variety of solutions and potions sold as medicines that are in reality worthless from a medical standpoint. The Free Dictionary by Farlex defines it as "a worthless preparation fraudulently peddled as a cure for many ills." As you can see, when most people talk about snake oil, they are not actually referring to real oil that has been extracted from a snake.
Extension
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Just as "snake oil" is commonly used to refer to a worthless miracle cure, the term can also be applied to written and spoken communications. In this context, snake oil means "speech or writing intended to deceive," according to the Princeton University Word Net dictionary. Consider it in this passage, which appeared in the Word Detective website: "I'm in the process of buying a new car, and as usual, the nice folks at the dealership tried to sell me a package of 'protectants,' which will do more to protect their profit margin than my car. I told them 'no,' while thinking to myself, 'What a load of snake oil!' "
Origin
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This slang term can be traced back to the traveling medicine-peddling salesman---a common figure from early American life, according to Word Detective. This salesman would go from town to town, selling all kinds of solutions--including snake oil--purported to cure a wide variety of ailments. "Of course, any 'hayseed' gullible enough to believe that snake oil was an effective cure for rheumatism would also be likely to believe that the salesman's bottles contained genuine snake oil," notes the Word Detective.
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References
- Photo Credit Snake image by Lucid_Exposure from Fotolia.com
