Recent Examples on the WebThe California Air Resources Board is charged with protecting the public from the harmful effects of air pollution and developing programs and actions to fight climate change, which often infringes upon the activities of petrol heads, unsurprisingly.—Logan Carter / Jalopnik, Quartz, 21 June 2024 The plant will reportedly manufacture other Ferrari vehicles, including petrol and hybrid models.—Megan Cerullo, CBS News, 19 June 2024 And Ximena made these sculptures from ceramic and steel, combining a traditional material and technique also used in pre-Columbian cultures with steel used in industrial processes like petrol extraction.—Francesca Aton, ARTnews.com, 12 June 2024 Tavares said the challenge for automakers was to sell EVs, whose production costs are 40% to 50% higher, at the same price as equivalent petrol models.—Reuters, Detroit Free Press, 29 May 2024 See all Example Sentences for petrol
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'petrol.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from French pétrole "petroleum, any of various products distilled from petroleum," going back to Old French petteroile, petrole "mineral oil, petroleum," borrowed from Medieval Latin petroleum — more at petroleum
Note:
The use of the word in English is apparently owed to a cooperative endeavor by the British distilling and oil refining firm Carless, Capel and Leonard and the engineer Frederick Richard Simms, who had purchased the rights to Gottlieb Daimler's gasoline-powered engine. Though an attempt to register petrol as a trademark was unsuccessful, Carless, Capel and Leonard continued to use it as a marketing name. Note that French pétrole (rather than essence de pétrole) is used for distilled petroleum products by Gustave Richard in Les nouveaux moteurs à gaz et à pétrole (Paris, 1892). The now usual French word essence for "gasoline" is shortened from essence de pétrole.
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