turpentine
Americannoun
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any of various oleoresins derived from coniferous trees, especially the longleaf pine, Pinus palustris, and yielding a volatile oil and a resin when distilled.
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Also called Chian turpentine. an oleoresin exuded by the terebinth, Pistacia terebinthus.
verb (used with object)
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to treat with turpentine; apply turpentine to.
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to gather or take crude turpentine from (trees).
noun
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Also called: gum turpentine. any of various viscous oleoresins obtained from various coniferous trees, esp from the longleaf pine, and used as the main source of commercial turpentine
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a brownish-yellow sticky viscous oleoresin that exudes from the terebinth tree
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Also called: oil of turpentine. spirits of turpentine. Sometimes (esp Brit) shortened to: turps. a colourless flammable volatile liquid with a pungent odour, distilled from turpentine oleoresin. It is an essential oil containing a mixture of terpenes and is used as a solvent for paints and in medicine as a rubefacient and expectorant
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Also called: turpentine substitute. white spirit. (not in technical usage) any one of a number of thinners for paints and varnishes, consisting of fractions of petroleum
verb
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to treat or saturate with turpentine
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to extract crude turpentine from (trees)
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A thin, easily vaporized oil that is distilled from the wood or resin of certain pine trees. It is used as a paint thinner and solvent. Chemical formula: C 10 H 16 .
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The sticky mixture of resin and oil from which this oil is distilled.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of turpentine
1275–1325; late Middle English, alteration of Middle English ter ( e ) bentyn ( e ) < Medieval Latin ter ( e ) bentīna, for Latin terebinthīna, noun use of feminine of terebinthīnus of the turpentine tree, equivalent to terebinth ( us ) turpentine tree (< Greek terébinthos ) + -īnus -ine 1
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 pollution episode near Aberlour left the water a milky white colour and smelling of turpentine.
From BBC ● May 3, 2026
They are both visual artists, and so I grew up in a studio home, where paint was flying onto walls, the smell of turpentine wafting up through the floorboards.
From New York Times ● Dec. 28, 2022
Back when Bartels raced as Eureka Pete, he used to favor paraffin, a little turpentine and some WD-40.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 9, 2022
The committee said the fortune of Harley Langdale Jr. was based on camps where where African American workers made turpentine from pine resin.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2021
She inhales the turpentine, the smell of defiance that is Pilar.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
A rope was turpentined, and touched with burning match, but the flame spread up and down the whole spiral length of the rope torch, to the infinite vexation of the lighter.
From Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 Devoted to Literature and National Policy. by Various
The wood may have been turpentined, or painted in a gay combination of colors, such as red, blue, green or yellow.
From The Stronghold A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People by Haynie, Miriam
The real sap-rollers came to grief when an ingenious Confederate stuffed port-fires with turpentined cotton and shot them into rollers only a few yards off.
From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by Wood, William Charles Henry
Many destructive fires also follow turpentining, so that on the whole the turpentine industry is responsible for the destruction each year of large areas of the southern pine forests.
From Checking the Waste A Study in Conservation by Gregory, Mary Huston
Wal, you all know the rest—how, when I'd grow'd up, I settled har, in the old North State, and how the young Cunnel backed my paper, and set me a runnin' at turpentining.
From Among the Pines or, South in Secession Time by Gilmore, James R.
Of the men who did the turpentining and white-leading there have been four.
From The Mutiny of the Elsinore by London, Jack
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.
