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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



... a short prayer each went on his way. Nisida, after having given her father the last daily attentions, went up to her room, replenished the oil in the lamp that burned day and night before the Virgin, and, leaning her elbow on the window ledge, divided the branches of jasmine which hung like perfumed curtains, began to gaze out at the sea, and seemed lost in a ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA--1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... my cold, but it goes on very slowly, which is particularly inconvenient to me at present; but all my writing about it will not put an end to my cough, and yet write I must. To-day I have begun to take violet syrup and a little almond oil, and already I feel relieved, and have again stayed two days in the house. Yesterday morning Herr Raaff came to me again to hear the aria in the second act. The man is as much enamored of his aria as a young passionate lover ever was of his fair one. He sings it the last thing before ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... add up a column of six figures abreast while I was just making a beginning at the right-hand bottom corner. But stupid-looking beings are often good at other things besides arithmetic. I have seen doctors, with very dull faces, who knew all about castor-oil and mustard-plasters, and above you see a picture of a Donkey who ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... sign-posts of her development. She had begun to buy them when she had stopped working in colour with a man who had a famous studio in New York. One day she had gone with the man to an exhibition of oil paintings which were infused with a matchless poetry ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... perfect is the correspondence between the Sacraments and the method of life where they are the agents, and which they symbolically set forth. There is in each case the material form and the spiritual substance, or energy. Water, chrism, oil, the spoken word, the touch of hands, the sign of the cross, and finally and supremely the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist. Each a material thing, but each representing, signifying and containing some ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram


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