Dictionary

petroleous en · ADJ

Etymology

From petrol + -eous.

Meanings

1. Containing petroleum.
   • His desire for a tip seeped out of him like oil from petroleous rock. 1961, Sir Darrell Bates, The Shell at My Ear, page 142:
   • The fire-damp in coal mines is a highly elastic petroleous effluvia. bursting from deep seams of fatter and less consolidated veins of coaal, by reason of the want of a sufficient resistance or circulation of the common air in such mines. 1774, Andrew Wilson, An Enquiry Into the Moving Powers Employed in the Circulation of the Blood:
2. Pertaining to the mining of petroleum.
   • The deepest element reached by petroleous drilling carried out for petroleous research, is represented from limestone of the upper Trias over 4800 meters thick (Patacca et al. 1979). 2003, H. Di Benedetto, T. Doanh, H. Geoffroy, Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials, →ISBN, page 268:
   • The evil day may in some cases be staved off by sinking new wells and by the discovery of new territory adjacent to the old, but this can be only a temporary expedient, and as the petroleous glory of Franklin has passed away so will also pass away the gaseous glory of Findlay and Pittsburg. 1888, Newton Horace Winchell, The American Geologist - Volume 1, page 35:
3. Characteristic of oil or petroleum.
   • See him explode with an apocalyptic gush of petroleous nigger blood and black bile and teeth and mucous and sweat and saliva and shredded gristle. 1970, Evergreen - Volume 14, Issues 80-85, page 64:
   • Inside it is dim and smells like candles and the petroleous reek of cheap carpeting. 1998, Eugene Stein, Rob Weisbach Books, Virgin Fiction, page 241:
   • If he had been able to command more champagne, howsoever petroleous, and if those two young women from the City Eoad could have cheered him with their delicate attentions, he might have been happy. 1883, Mrs. Mortimer Collins, From midnight to midnight, page 187:
   • I ought not to omit to add that this formation in addition to its other peculiarities is characterised by a notable proportion of bitumen, so that a strong petroleous odor is perceptible immediately on the application of the hydrochloric acid and not less so after the subsidence of the effervescence, 1852, William Francis Lynch, Official Report of the United States' Expedition to Explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan:

Forms