Quackery

//ˈkwæk(ə)ri// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The practice of fraudulent medicine, usually in order to make money or for ego gratification and power; health fraud. uncountable

    "When no certain cure exists, quack remedies tend to proliferate and the history of quackery and secret cures is full of extraordinary forms of treatment for the various arthritic disorders."

  2. 2
    medical practice and advice based on observation and experience in ignorance of scientific findings wordnet
  3. 3
    An instance of practicing fraudulent medicine. countable

    "[…] the manifold and serpentine wiles and evasions, shufflings and fencings, deceits and dissimulations, he had practised —the bunkums and the quackeries, […]"

  4. 4
    the dishonesty of a charlatan wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
empiricismcharlatanismcharlatanismhumbughypocrisyimposture

Example

More examples

"Dozens of astrological journals and newspapers are published; quackery drives out medicine; and all this mystical squalor is justified in every possible way by philosophical argumentation."

Etymology

From quack + -ery.

Related phrases

snake oil

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.