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petroleum

[puh-troh-lee-uhm]

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noun

an oily, thick, flammable, usually dark-colored liquid that is a form of bitumen or a mixture of various hydrocarbons, occurring naturally in various parts of the world and commonly obtained by drilling: used in a natural or refined state as fuel, or separated by distillation into gasoline, naphtha, benzene, kerosene, paraffin, etc.

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Origin:
1520–30; < Medieval Latin: literally, rock oil, equivalent to Latin petr(a) rock (< Greek pétra) + oleum oil

Related forms

pe·tro·le·ous, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Petroleum is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Example Sentences

Petroleum jelly is a semisolid mixture of fat-based substances made from petroleum.

Try a little petroleum jelly on the tip of your nose, ear lobes, and lips.

For much of this series, the trade deficit and the deficit less petroleum move in tandem.

EXPAND

Petroleum jelly is a semisolid mixture of fat-based substances made from petroleum.

Try a little petroleum jelly on the tip of your nose, ear lobes, and lips.

For much of this series, the trade deficit and the deficit less petroleum move in tandem.

But discoveries of huge petroleum deposits kept gasoline and diesel cheap for decades, and biofuels were largely forgotten.

Plant-based plastics are beginning to replace petroleum.

Today, the state is the base for the nation's large, nationally owned petroleum industry.

Don't confuse it with synthetic latex, which is derived from petroleum.

Vaporizing sawdust and corn stalks yields a versatile petroleum stand-in called bio-oil.

There are multiple theories of petroleum origin, none absolutely certain.

For much of the previous decade, the petroleum deficit hovered at a level around a third of the total trade deficit.

Petroleum is a hidden ingredient in hundreds of daily household items, including chewing gum.

Myriant is by no means the only commercial-scale venture to shut the door on petroleum feedstocks.

Advances in biotechnology are limiting the damage oil spills inflict, as scientists supercharge bacteria to devour petroleum.

However, extracting and refining their petroleum is highly polluting.

The scientists are using techniques borrowed from the petroleum industry, but they're not searching for oil.

California regulators may rule that the biofuel is no better--and might be worse--than petroleum for solving climate change.

The second major issue with petroleum centers on the issue of global climate change.

Petroleum is an input to farm machinery, and dear petrol adds to the cost of food shipments.

History took notice-the largest petroleum storage tank fire in the world was overcome.

Heavier fractions contain more sulfur, and too much renders the petroleum useless.

The message is nothing but an urban legend, say representatives from the wireless and petroleum industries.

It will only lead to more petroleum imports from abroad.

The convenient storage of petroleum fuels combined with its low cost has led to an unrivaled success.

Rare earths are used in automotive catalytic converters and for refining petroleum products.

Ecuador can perfectly develop domestic petroleum industry while reducing its carbon footprint.

Petroleum gave us the population bubble, and petroleum will burst the bubble.

And then, as the petroleum market stabilized, sales waned.

They were, it was true, almost entirely made of petroleum in some form or another.

The team found that the top and bottom sections of the core were clear of petroleum residue.

Typically, commercially available biodiesel is combined with regular petroleum diesel.

Even the blasting agents are all made from petroleum.

Nations scramble to claim their share of the petroleum riches trapped deep.

Its only major flaw is a serious case of petroleum abuse.

Staff members said extraction of petroleum did not significantly contribute to indirect land-use changes.

Not only does it burn hotter and faster than a petroleum stove or a regular wood fire, it burns cleaner.

The petroleum in use here is almost entirely used for transportation.

All cars and trucks are required to be petroleum guzzlers.

The machinery to plant and harvest the food runs on petroleum.

Yokohama says the tires require less petroleum than conventional tires to manufacture and save you more gasoline.

Petroleum wastes, hydrocarbon wastes and organic solvents can degrade the new liner.

Not to mention the fact that plastic bags are a petroleum product and thus unnecessarily depleting our oil supply.

It's not written in stone that humanity has to propel itself with petroleum alone.

Patterson recognized that shallow-water petroleum reserves were running dry and that drilling in deeper water would be costly.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

petroleum (pəˈtrəʊlɪəm)

—n
	a dark-coloured thick flammable crude oil occurring in sedimentary rocks around the Persian Gulf, in parts of North and South America, and below the North Sea, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. Fractional distillation separates the crude oil into petrol, paraffin, diesel oil, lubricating oil, etc. Fuel oil, paraffin wax, asphalt, and carbon black are extracted from the residue

[C16: from Medieval Latin, from Latin petra stone + oleum oil]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

petroleum

1348, from M.L. petroleum, from L. petra "rock" + oleum "oil."

American Heritage

Science Dictionary

petroleum

(pə-trō'lē-əm) Pronunciation Key
A thick, flammable, yellow-to-black mixture of gaseous, liquid, and solid hydrocarbons that occurs naturally beneath the Earth's surface. It can be separated into fractions including natural gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, paraffin wax, asphalt, and fuel and lubricating oils, and is used as raw material for a wide variety of derivative products. It is believed to originate from the accumulated remains of fossil plants and animals, especially in shallow marine environments.

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rock oil -eum acronym alternative fuel barrel benzine

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petroleum

pe·tro·le·um