noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A processing unit in oil refinery that reduces the quantity of residual oil produced in the distillation of crude oil to increase the yield of more valuable middle distillates (heating oil and diesel) by thermally cracking large hydrocarbon molecules in the oil.

Etymology

From viscosity breaker.

Related phrases

crude oilresidual oil

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