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petrol

UK/ˈpɛt.ɹəl/US/ˈpɛt.ɹəl/
nounB1+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,730 of 15,258neutral

Petrol is the liquid you pump into a car to make it go. Fill up with petrol, petrol prices, a petrol engine.

This is the British word; American English says gas or gasoline, which confuses everybody. A petrol engine ignites with a spark where a diesel ignites by compression. The name comes from petroleum, which means rock oil.

Burger · Public domain

Definitions of petrol

  1. 1nounpetrolThe fuel used in most cars.B1+

    “We stopped at a garage to fill the car up with petrol.”

petrol is a fuel.

Also accepted in games: gasoline, gas, fuel

Where it comes from

From French essence de petrole, from Latin petroleum, rock oil, from Greek petra, rock, plus elaion, oil.

  1. Ancient Greek

    πετρέλαιον — oil of the rock

  2. Medieval Latin

    petroleum

  3. French

    (essence de) pétrole

  4. English, today

    petrol

Built from

  • πέτρα · Ancient Greek — stone, rock
  • ἔλαιον · Ancient Greek — olive oil, any oily substance

French (essence de) pétrole, from Medieval Latin petroleum, from Ancient Greek πετρέλαιον (“oil of the rock”), from πέτρα (“stone, rock”)+ ἔλαιον (“olive oil, any oily substance”). a doublet of petroleum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Travel & Transport

Practise this word

petrol in the wild

  • All compression-ignition engines (e.g., diesel engines), and many spark-ignition engines (i.e., petrol (gasoline) engines, such as Otto or Wankel), use fuel injection of one kind or another.

    Fuel injection

  • A filling station (also known as a gas station or petrol station) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles.

    Filling station

  • A petrol engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on petrol (gasoline).

    Petrol engine

  • Most petrol engines use spark ignition, unlike diesel engines which run on diesel fuel and typically use compression ignition.

    Petrol engine

  • Gasoline direct injection (GDI), also known as petrol direct injection (PDI), is a fuel injection system for internal combustion engines that run on gasoline.

    Gasoline direct injection

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the petroleum family

petrolpetroleum

petrol — used about once every 2,103 pages · #6,730 · point at the bar for the others