Earth & SkyGreek → English
Petroleum
/pəˈtroʊliəm/noun
Crude mineral oil extracted from underground deposits.
The Greek roots
πέτρα
pétra
rock, stone
ἔλαιον
élaion
olive oil
Literally: “rock oil”
The story of the word
Medieval Latin writers built petroleum for the black oil that seeped out of rock faces and was sold as a wound salve. Strictly, only the first half is Greek: oleum is the Latin word for oil, though Latin had borrowed it from Greek élaion, which meant olive oil and nothing else. The Greeks knew the seeps as asphaltos and pissa, and used them for caulking and for fire.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
petrolpetrifypetrologyoil
In a sentence
Petroleum was sold in tiny bottles as medicine long before anyone burned it for light.