noun
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a person who owns or operates oil wells
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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:
“No one was paying any attention to Venezuelan oil two weeks ago,” a longtime oilman said to me the other day, “but now everyone is.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 10, 2026
The smartest oilman I know once told me that the low-cost producer always wins.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 11, 2025
He’s an oilman who invested in environmentally questionable projects; she’s a climate scientist.
From New York Times ● May 30, 2024
According to the hotel website, the Sandman Signature Fort Worth Downtown Hotel has 245 rooms and was built in 1920 as the “Waggoner Building,” named after cattle rancher and oilman William Thomas Waggoner.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 8, 2024
Still, William B. Pine—a U.S. senator from Oklahoma who was a wealthy oilman and had defended the guardianship system—began to lobby government officials for White and his men to be fired from the bureau.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
But to West Texas oilmen, it makes little sense to add expensive rigs and boost production when the war could be short-lived and crude prices drop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 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
In 1920, Sinclair, Marland, and other oilmen helped finance the successful presidential bid of Warren Harding.
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.
