name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A flammable liquid ranging in color from clear to very dark brown and black, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring naturally in deposits under the Earth's surface. countable, uncountable

   "petroleum-based products"

2. 2
   a dark oil consisting mainly of hydrocarbons wordnet

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Nottingham Township, Wells County, Indiana.
2. 2
   A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Allen County, Kentucky.
3. 3
   A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Ritchie County, West Virginia.

Synonyms

All synonyms

oilcrude oiloilavgasbenzineblack gold

Example

More examples

"The present world owes its convenient life to petroleum."

Etymology

From Medieval Latin petroleum, from petra (“rock”) + oleum (“oil”). Doublet of petrol.

Related phrases

Petroleum Countyliquefied petroleum gaspackaged petroleum productpetroleum cokepetroleum etherpetroleum flypetroleum jellypetroleum reservoirpetroleum spirit

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.