quackery
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of quackery
Explanation
Quackery is when someone pretends to have experience or knowledge, especially in the field of medicine. It's quackery when someone poses as a doctor. If a person fakes being a medical doctor, that's quackery. You can also call it quackery when a company sells an herb or supplement or diet aid that doesn't actually do anything. Some doctors feel that any alternative medicine is nothing but quackery, while others believe that some of these things — like meditation or acupuncture — really work for patients. Quackery is from the 1690's, from a Dutch root word, quacksalver, "hawker of salve."
Vocabulary lists containing quackery
Whirligig
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The Souls of Black Folk, Ch. 1, "Our Spiritual Strivings" by W.E.B. Du Bois
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
We were tossing around ideas for a follow-up to "Quackery" in the fall of 2019, and decided on this topic of Patient Zero stories and how epidemics and pandemics unfold.
From Salon • Jan. 24, 2022
Some of these procedures in the future will prove to have been true "Quackery."
From New York Times • Nov. 20, 2017
Quackery, magic and hokus-pokus are all too prevalent.
From Time Magazine Archive
J. Cramp, sharp-tongued, ruthless quack-killer and nostrum-chaser for the A. M. A., compiler of the Association's reference book, Nostrums & Quackery.
From Time Magazine Archive
Quackery as this is, it is enormously run after by no small proportion of the public.
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 by Chambers, Robert
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
