Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
Alternative letter-case form of Carbon Oil.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Distilled petroleum used as lamp oil; early kerosene.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Pennsylvania, Western, obsolete, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From carbon + oil. Coined in the early 1850s in Pennsylvania by Samuel Martin Kier, an American industrialist who refined crude petroleum into an illuminant. Kier chose a marketable name for his new lamp fuel to emphasize both its petroleum origin and its difference from whale oil. According to linguist Hans Kurath, this term may be heard from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line.
