noun
-
a person who owns or operates oil wells
-
a person who makes or sells oil
Gender
See -man.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of oilman
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at oil, man
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.
See Examples For:
He is a respected, successful oilman who for years was U.S. shale’s de facto leader.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
But what is opportunity to one oilman is “uninvestable” to another.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 14, 2026
He’s an oilman who invested in environmentally questionable projects; she’s a climate scientist.
From New York Times ● May 30, 2024
Buckley was the fourth of 10 children of a millionaire oilman and older brother of conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., who died in February 2008.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2023
“After all,” one oilman reasoned, “we’re just another Middle East war away from another boom.”
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
He is now offering advice on the new leadership of PdVSA, traveling to Brazil and elsewhere to recruit oilmen and create a lucrative new era of partnership between the state-run oil company and Washington.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026
It gave the oilmen and real estate developers and business titans across Texas who funneled cash to their alma mater bragging rights at the Petroleum Club of Houston and country clubs in Dallas.
From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2024
Two oilmen would come to grief, more or less, in the 1920s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2023
"Barrack has done deals with Saudi princes, Texas oilmen, a Caribbean dictator — even with Donald Trump," that sycophantic Fortune profile recounted.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2022
The regulations, issued in 2014, were costly to satisfy, and as a consequence oilmen had virtually stopped drilling new wells, given that they produced only marginal returns.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
