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Therefore, India is one of the few countries in the world where in the last three years, prices of energy, petrol, diesel, at the retail point, have actually come down.—Danish Manzoor Bhat, MSNBC Newsweek, 23 May 2025 Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker wore a custom Vivienne Westwood 1780s-style petrol blue silk gala dress.—Julia Teti, Footwear News, 22 May 2025 Over the course of their wistful and chaotic journey into the big city (a two-hour drive from Ibadan that becomes an odyssey unto itself, thanks to Nigeria’s petrol shortage), the boys will come to see their father in a brilliant new light — one that will light up their dreams for decades to come.—David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 18 May 2025 Aromas include black licorice, petrol, cinnamon and nutmeg.—Tom Mullen, Forbes.com, 11 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for petrol
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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