quackery

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   fraudulent or scientifically unsound medical practice, treatment, or advice

   Regulators warned that the advertised miracle cure was dangerous quackery.

2. 2
   noun

   dishonest pretension to expertise or the use of unsound methods in any field

   The committee dismissed the consultant's method as statistical quackery.

Formed from quack + -ery. Quack in the sense "fraudulent healer" is short for quacksalver, from Dutch kwakzalver, literally a hawker or boaster about salves. The word broadened from medical fraud to pretended expertise in other fields.

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