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Oil   /ɔɪl/   Listen
noun
Oil  n.  Any one of a great variety of unctuous combustible substances, more viscous than and not miscible with water; as, olive oil, whale oil, rock oil, etc. They are of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin and of varied composition, and they are variously used for food, for solvents, for anointing, lubrication, illumination, etc. By extension, any substance of an oily consistency; as, oil of vitriol. Note: The mineral oils are varieties of petroleum. See Petroleum. The vegetable oils are of two classes, essential oils (see under Essential), and natural oils which in general resemble the animal oils and fats. Most of the natural oils and the animal oils and fats consist of ethereal salts of glycerin, with a large number of organic acids, principally stearic, oleic, and palmitic, forming respectively stearin, olein, and palmitin. Stearin and palmitin prevail in the solid oils and fats, and olein in the liquid oils. Mutton tallow, beef tallow, and lard are rich in stearin, human fat and palm oil in palmitin, and sperm and cod-liver oils in olein. In making soaps, the acids leave the glycerin and unite with the soda or potash.
Animal oil, Bone oil, Dipple's oil, etc. (Old Chem.), a complex oil obtained by the distillation of animal substances, as bones. See Bone oil, under Bone.
Drying oils, Essential oils. (Chem.) See under Drying, and Essential.
Ethereal oil of wine, Heavy oil of wine. (Chem.) See under Ethereal.
Fixed oil. (Chem.) See under Fixed.
Oil bag (Zool.), a bag, cyst, or gland in animals, containing oil.
Oil beetle (Zool.), any beetle of the genus Meloe and allied genera. When disturbed they emit from the joints of the legs a yellowish oily liquor. Some species possess vesicating properties, and are used instead of cantharides.
Oil box, or Oil cellar (Mach.), a fixed box or reservoir, for lubricating a bearing; esp., the box for oil beneath the journal of a railway-car axle.
Oil cake. See under Cake.
Oil cock, a stopcock connected with an oil cup. See Oil cup.
Oil color.
(a)
A paint made by grinding a coloring substance in oil.
(b)
Such paints, taken in a general sense.
(c)
a painting made from such a paint.
Oil cup, a cup, or small receptacle, connected with a bearing as a lubricator, and usually provided with a wick, wire, or adjustable valve for regulating the delivery of oil.
Oil engine, a gas engine worked with the explosive vapor of petroleum.
Oil gas, inflammable gas procured from oil, and used for lighting streets, houses, etc.
Oil gland.
(a)
(Zool.) A gland which secretes oil; especially in birds, the large gland at the base of the tail.
(b)
(Bot.) A gland, in some plants, producing oil.
Oil green, a pale yellowish green, like oil.
Oil of brick, empyreumatic oil obtained by subjecting a brick soaked in oil to distillation at a high temperature, used by lapidaries as a vehicle for the emery by which stones and gems are sawn or cut.
Oil of talc, a nostrum made of calcined talc, and famous in the 17th century as a cosmetic. (Obs.)
Oil of vitriol (Chem.), strong sulphuric acid; so called from its oily consistency and from its forming the vitriols or sulphates.
Oil of wine, OEnanthic ether. See under OEnanthic.
Oil painting.
(a)
The art of painting in oil colors.
(b)
Any kind of painting of which the pigments are originally ground in oil.
Oil palm (Bot.), a palm tree whose fruit furnishes oil, esp. Elaeis Guineensis. See Elaeis.
Oil sardine (Zool.), an East Indian herring (Clupea scombrina), valued for its oil.
Oil shark (Zool.)
(a)
The liver shark.
(b)
The tope.
Oil still, a still for hydrocarbons, esp. for petroleum.
Oil test, a test for determining the temperature at which petroleum oils give off vapor which is liable to explode.
Oil tree. (Bot.)
(a)
A plant of the genus Ricinus (Ricinus communis), from the seeds of which castor oil is obtained.
(b)
An Indian tree, the mahwa. See Mahwa.
(c)
The oil palm.
To burn the midnight oil, to study or work late at night.
Volatle oils. See Essential oils, under Essential.


verb
Oil  v. t.  (past & past part. oiled; pres. part. oiling)  To smear or rub over with oil; to lubricate with oil; to anoint with oil.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Oil" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the Britannia Theatre at Hoxton, a mile north of St. Luke's Hospital in the Old-street- road, London. The Forty Thieves might be played here, and every thief ride his real horse, and the disguised captain bring in his oil jars on a train of real camels, and nobody be put out of the way. This really extraordinary place is the achievement of one man's enterprise, and was erected on the ruins of an inconvenient old building in less than five months, at a round cost of five-and- ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... spirit of the place are the sole agents; the directors are mere passive overseers. St. Sulpice is a machine which has been well constructed for the last two hundred years: it goes of itself, and all that the driver has to do is to watch the movements, and from time to time to screw up a nut and oil the joints. It is not like Saint-Nicholas, for instance, where the machine was never allowed to go by itself. The driver was always tinkering at it, running first to the right and then to the left, peering in here and altering a wheel there, not knowing or remembering that the best mounted machine ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... to Pittsburgh by rail, you strike the Ohio River at Wellsville; and the railroad runs thence, for forty-eight miles, to Pittsburgh, along the river bank, and through the edge of a country rich in coal, oil, potters' clay, limestone, and iron, and supporting a ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... medical oil is prepared with which if an arrow be smeared, and it be shot gently from a loose bow (for it loses its effect in a rapid flight), wherever it sticks it burns steadily, and if any one attempts to quench it with water it only burns more fiercely, nor can it be put ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... certainly am glad you have came over to back me up in getting down these doses of oil. Ez," with an indignant and contemptuous glance at her sullen husband, "don't want me to give it to 'em. He'd rather they'd up and die than to stand the ruckus, but I ain't a-going to let my own children perish for a few cherry seeds with a bottle of ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess


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