petrol

Etymology

It is borrowed from Anglo-Norman petroille, also petrole in Middle French,^[2] recorded in Old French from the 13th century as petrole,^[2][3] now pétrole,^[2][4] from Medieval Latin petroleum.^{[2][3][5][6][7]} The Medieval Latin word means "rock oil" and is formed from petra (“rock”) and oleum (“oil”).^[4][8] The fuel sense was taken again from French at the end of the 19th century:^[9][10][6] according to the OED it was introduced about 1893 by Carless, Capel and Leonard, oil refiners in Hackney Wick who worked for F. Simms and through him for Daimler, after French pétrole, used of this fuel by 1892; an attempt to register it as a trademark failed.^[2][3] The short-lived chemical sense of 1877 probably follows German Petrol.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Petroleum, mineral oil: 1540, in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland,^[2][11] also as oil of petrol.^[2] Barnhart's first date for this sense is 1596,^[12][6] and Etymonline's the 1580s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that petrol first meant the mineral oil taken from the ground, what is now called petroleum or simply oil, and only at the end of the 19th century the fuel refined from it.^[4] The older sense died out by the early 19th century (last in 1811).^[2][9] The fuel sense appears in 1895, in an article by F. R. Simms in the Saturday Review,^[2][3][6] and became the British word for what Americans and Canadians call gasoline.^[13][11] A verb meaning to refuel a vehicle followed in 1902,^[2] and petrol was used for a shade of blue from 1927.^[2][9] In Australian prison slang it has meant heroin, recorded in 1990.^[14]

Timeline

• 1540 – petroleum (obsolete after 1811).^[2][11]
• 1596 – petroleum, in Barnhart.^[12][6]
• 1877 – a hydrocarbon obtained from petroleum (obsolete).^[2]
• 1895 – refined fuel for internal-combustion engines.^[2][3][6]
• 1902 – verb, to fill a vehicle with petrol.^[2]
• 1927 – a shade of blue.^[2]
• 1990 – Australian prison slang, heroin.^[14]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (chiefly British) A volatile, flammable liquid made from petroleum and used as fuel for internal-combustion engines; gasoline: We stopped for petrol on the way to the coast.
2. (archaic) Petroleum.
3. A shade of blue, also called petrol blue.

Verb

1. To fill a vehicle with petrol.

Word family

• petrolic
• petroliferous
• petrol bomb

Related words

• petroleum
• petrify
• saltpetre
• parsley
• oil
• gasoline

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com