rock oil
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of rock oil
1660–70; translation of Medieval Latin petroleum
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.
But by fracking the rock, oil flowed from the shale.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2014
Both Townsend and Drake would have died richer men had they never heard of the Pennsylvania rock oil.
From Inventors by Philip Gengembre Hubert
In the late fifties Mr. George H. Bissell had become interested in rock oil, not as an embrocation and as a cure for most human ills, but as a light-giving material.
From The Age of Big Business; a chronicle of the captains of industry by Burton Jesse Hendrick
No. On all bearings the same oil, but on mainspring a rock oil.
From Friction, Lubrication and the Lubricants in Horology by William T. Lewis
The gold mines of California and of Australia are too well known to require mention; but we must not forget the rock oil, concealed for ages in the North American continent.
From The Mines and its Wonders by William Henry Giles Kingston
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.
