well-oiled

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well-oiled

Where it comes from

The figurative sense of smoothrunning is an extension from the literal sense involving lubrication.

adjective more well-oiled · most well-oiled

idiomatic Well-run; smoothrunning; efficiently run. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.
Similar: businesslike, efficient, economical, efficacious, potent
idiomatic Drunk. Well, in 2000, a pair of well-oiled strangers hit the news and were arrested – after groping each other and undressing on a transatlantic flight – but it’s usually less extreme, as with the couple who were intensely snogging in 2020.
Similar: lubricated, lubed, sauced, Adrian Quist, adrip, aled up, all mops and brooms, arseholed, a sheet in the wind, a sheet in the wind's eye, bedrunken, befuddled
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see well, oiled.

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MLA

"well-oiled." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/well-oiled. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

well-oiled. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/well-oiled

Chicago

"well-oiled." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/well-oiled.

BibTeX

@misc{well_oiled_2026,
  title = {well-oiled},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/well-oiled},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}