Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Kerosene
/ˈkɛrəsiːn/noun
A thin distilled fuel oil used in lamps, heaters and jet engines.
The Greek roots
κηρός
kērós
wax
Literally: “wax stuff”
Follow a root:κηρός1 word
The story of the word
Abraham Gesner coined the name in 1854 for the lamp oil he distilled from bitumen, choosing the Greek for wax after the waxy residue it left. He registered it as a trademark and lost control of it almost at once. It replaced whale oil in American lamps within a decade, which did more for whales than any argument of the time.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1854
Same family
cerumenceresincerotic
In a sentence
The stove burns kerosene and smells of it for an hour afterwards.
Jet A is kerosene with a tightly controlled freezing point.