petrol: [16] Petrol originally meant ‘mineral oil, extracted from the ground’ (what we would now call petroleum or, more loosely, simply oil); not until the end of the 19th century was it applied to the ‘fuel refined from this’. The word was borrowed from French pétrole, which in turn came from Latin petroleum (itself taken over directly into English in the 16th century).
This means etymologically ‘rock-oil’. It was formed from petra ‘rock’ and oleum ‘oil’. Other English words that go back to Latin petra or its Greek source pétrā include parsley, petrify [16], saltpetre [16] (so called because it forms a crust like salt on rocks), and the name Peter (a reference to Jesus calling the apostle Simon the ‘rock on which he would build his church’ – hence ‘Simon Peter’). => parsley, petrify, saltpetre
petrol (n.)
"gasoline," 1895, from French pétrol (1892); earlier used (1580s) in reference to the unrefined substance, from Middle French petrole "petroleum," from Old French (13c.), from Medieval Latin petroleum (see petroleum).
双语例句
1. The crowds became violent and threw petrol bombs at the police.
人群变得狂暴起来，并向警察投掷汽油弹。
来自柯林斯例句
2. There's no petrol, so it's very difficult to transport goods.
没有汽油，因此很难运输货物。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The boom of the 1980s led to a taste for petrol-guzzling cars.
20世纪80年代的经济繁荣使人们喜欢上高油耗的汽车。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The price of petrol is coming down by four pence a gallon.
汽油的价格每加仑降了4便士。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Every eventuality is covered, from running out of petrol to needing water.
