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
The oil mentioned in the next line, is that called the rock oil, petroleum, a black fetid mineral oil, good for bruises and sprains.
From The Lusiad or The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem by Luís de Camões
In this phial put, first, glass coarsely powdered; secondly, oil of tartar per deliquum; thirdly, tincture of salt of tartar; and lastly, distilled rock oil.
From Endless Amusement A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments by Unknown
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
Petroleum, or rock oil, is a dark greenish brown liquid which when refined yields gasolene, naphtha, benzine, kerosene, lubricating oils, and paraffin.
From Checking the Waste A Study in Conservation by Mary Huston Gregory
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.
