refinery
Americannoun
-
refineries
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of refinery
Explanation
A refinery is a facility where raw materials are converted into some valuable substance by having impurities removed. At an oil refinery, crude oil is treated and made into gasoline and other petroleum products. Whenever a material needs to have unwanted parts removed in order to be made into a useable product, it must be refined — clarified or processed. This is done at a plant called a refinery. A sugar refinery, for example, converts sugar cane or beets into familiar white, refined crystals of sugar. Refinery comes from refine, which is rooted in the now-obsolete verb fine, "make fine."
Vocabulary lists containing refinery
Refugee
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The Cay
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The Omnivore's Dilemma
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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:
The Schwedt refinery has since taken increased deliveries via the Baltic sea ports of Rostock in Germany and Gdansk in Poland, and is now operating at 80 percent of capacity.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
Dangote is planning to build a 700,000-barrel-per-day east African oil refinery in Lamu, on the Kenyan coast.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
Groundbreaking for that refinery will take place on September 30, an official confirmed.
From Barron's ● Sep. 4, 2026
U.S. refinery capacity use rose to 98% last week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
The U.S. customs office was kept busy inspecting oil tankers from the Middle East which supplied crude oil to the refinery at Hess Oil.
From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos
It also loosened fuel-quality standards to allow more supplies from second-tier, Soviet-built refineries and banned diesel exports.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
“Our refineries could buy Venezuelan oil and then offer the U.S. government higher-quality oil,” said Clayton Seigle, a managing director at advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
But that doesn’t mean they are interested in building new refineries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
Another long-range drone made by Culver Aerospace, called Sichen, meaning January, has been one of Ukraine’s most successful, hitting oil refineries outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow among other targets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
Royal Dutch Shell had borrowed him from his American company because he was an expert in refineries and gasoline production.
From "The Cay" by Theodore Taylor
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.
