banana oil

American  

[buh-nan-uh oil] / bəˈnæn ə ˌɔɪl /

noun

1. Also called amylacetic ether.  Also called amyl acetate.  a sweet-smelling liquid ester, C 7 H 14 O 2 , a mixture of isomers derived from amyl alcohol and having the characteristic odor of bananas: used chiefly as a paint solvent and in artificial fruit flavors; amyl acetate.

2. Slang. insincere talk; nonsense.

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banana oil British  

noun

1. a solution of cellulose nitrate in pentyl acetate or a similar solvent, which has a banana-like smell

2. a nontechnical name for pentyl acetate

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banana oil Idioms  

1. Nonsense, exaggerated flattery, as in I should be on television? Cut out the banana oil! The precise analogy in this idiom is not clear, unless it is to the fact that banana oil, a paint solvent and artificial flavoring agent, has no relation to the fruit other than that it smells like it. Possibly it is a variation on snake oil, a term for quack medicine that was extended to mean nonsense. [1920s]

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Etymology

Origin of banana oil

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Because the number of banana eaters in the U. S. is practically a daily constant, and because from the banana comes such useful commodities as banana oil, the United Fruit Co.

From Time Magazine Archive

Hope does his best to get something risible visible, but halfway through he drowns in second banana oil.

From Time Magazine Archive

To them the disease which annually sets 6,000,000 U. S. victims gasping is a common form of allergy: a bodily sensitivity to certain foreign substances such as eggs, milk, wheat, horsehair, pollen grains, banana oil.

From Time Magazine Archive

Sissy explained that she had bought a bit of gold paint powder, mixed it with a few drops of banana oil and had gilded each penny.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

The Adams and Elting Company, Chicago, have a stain called adelite, in which banana oil appears to be the solvent.

From Handwork in Wood by Noyes, William