snake-oil
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See also: snake oil
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From snake oil.
Verb
[edit]snake-oil (third-person singular simple present snake-oils, present participle snake-oiling, simple past and past participle snake-oiled)
- (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.