oil
nounverbcommon in dialogue
- United States//ɔɪl//
- United States/[ɔɪʲəɫ]/
- //ɔl//
Liquid fat.
noun
- 1
Liquid fat.
- 2
Petroleum-based liquid used as fuel or lubricant.
- 3
Petroleum.
Oil is found in countries such as Saudi Arabia and is transported all over the world.
- 4
An oil painting.
Yet, in another way, I was unable to put Picasso's oils in the same class as Cezanne's, or even (which will no doubt shock many readers) as Renoir's.
- 5
Oil paint.
I prefer to paint in oil
Etymology
From Middle English oyle, oile (“olive oil”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman olie, from Latin oleum (“oil, olive oil”), from Ancient Greek ἔλαιον (élaion, “olive oil”), from ἐλαία (elaía, “olive”). Compare Proto-Slavic *lojь. More at olive. Doublet of oleum. Supplanted Middle English ele (“oil”), from Old English ele (“oil”), also from Latin.
verb
- 1
To lubricate with oil.
Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.
Platform faces in Holland are further back from the track than they are in Britain, and it is a common thing to see a driver standing quite comfortably between his engine and the platform while oiling the motion.
The face which emerged was not reassuring.[…]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.
- 2
To grease with oil for cooking.
- 3
To fuel with oil.
- 4
To say in an unctuous manner.
"Do you need a drink?" oils Robert Ryan to the disinterested Stanwyck in Clash By Night; "Let's say that's what I need," she sneers back.
Etymology
From Middle English oilen, oylen, from the noun (see above).
Forms
- plural
- oils
- past tense
- oiled
- past participle
- oiled
- present participle
- oiling
- third person singular
- oils