petroleum

American  

[puh-troh-lee-uhm] / pəˈtroʊ li əm /

noun

petroleums plural

1. 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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petroleum British  

/ pəˈtrəʊlɪəm /

noun

1. 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

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petroleum Scientific  

/ pə-trō′lē-əm /

1. 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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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• petroleous
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• petroleums
  plural

Etymology

Origin of petroleum

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

Compare meaning

How does petroleum compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• petrolatum vs. petroleum

Explanation

Petroleum is oil — a fossil fuel that powers many vehicles and other machinery. Petroleum is a fancy, technical word for something you've probably heard of: oil, an energy source. Petroleum is also known as crude, crude oil, fossil oil, and rock oil. A lot of petroleum is found in the Middle East, and people are always looking for new sources of petroleum. You have to drill for petroleum, because it's deep inside the Earth. There’s a limited amount of petroleum, so many people worry that we're going to use it all up.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

petroleum petroleums

“Americans are probably going to spend more on gasoline as it relates to the price of oil in that gasoline,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told MarketWatch.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026

Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab al-Mandab also rose to 7.4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global output.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

U.S. import prices unexpectedly ticked up in June from May, driven by nonfuel imports, while petroleum imports finally pulled back, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

These sedimentary rocks contain petroleum precursors that have spent millions of years deep underground.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026

Quickly it was realized that petroleum in volume not only could be used to bind bowels and banish scabby growths but could be refined into lucrative products like paraffin and kerosene.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson

Zaloziecki found, according to this method, in three samples of Galician petroleums, 4.6, 5.8 and 6.5 per cent., respectively, of proto-paraffine.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 by Various

At present little is known as to how far many of the very cheap distillates and crude petroleums can be used as fuel for internal-combustion engines.

From Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 Federal Investigations of Mine Accidents, Structural Materials and Fuels. Paper No. 1171 by Wilson, Herbert M.

By extension, any one of the natural hydrocarbons, including the hard, solid, brittle varieties called asphalt, the semisolid maltha and mineral tars, the oily petroleums, and even the light, volatile naphthas.

From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Webster, Noah

The method was carried out as above with four samples of American petroleums, Colorado oil from Florence, Col.;

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 by Various

Related Words

• crude oil
• fossil fuel
• fuel
• gas
• gasoline
• kerosene
• natural gas
• petrol