Definition of fracking
:the injection of fluid into shale beds at high pressure in order to free up petroleum resources (such as oil or natural gas)
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fracking was our Word of the Day on 06/26/2014. Hear the podcast!
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Recent Examples of fracking from the Web
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A city moves to ban hydraulic fracking or the use of plastic shopping bags or puppy mills or sugary drinks, and then the state smacks them down.
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QuickTake explainers on OPEC, what drives oil prices and fracking.
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But increased U.S. oil production with the development of fracking is helping to suppress major jumps in U.S. gas prices as that foreign oil output decreases, DeHaan said.
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This could lead to the abandonment of large-scale pipeline projects and other high-cost oil-extraction methods such as offshore drilling and fracking.
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Which is exactly the wrong path, to lock in fracking.
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But the U.S. has experienced an energy renaissance of sorts in the past decade thanks largely to an oil and gas boom that followed advances in hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.
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Many are in energy-rich counties in the Midwest and Colorado, where the fracking and natural gas booms have vacuumed up the workforce.
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Using techniques such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling, companies have ramped up production in shale oil formations such as the Permian Basin in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'fracking.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
Hydraulic fracturing is a technique in which a liquid is injected under high pressure into a well in order to create tiny fissures in the rock deep beneath the earth which then allow gas and oil to flow into the well. The term "hydraulic fracturing" is first known to have appeared in print in a 1948 issue of Oil & Gas Journal. A 1953 issue of the same journal also contains the earliest known print use of "fracking." The word fracking (sometimes spelled fraccing or fracing, particularly by those in the gas and oil industries) was created by shortening "fracturing." The addition of the "k" brings the word into conformity with the inflected forms of similar English words ending in a vowel plus "c," such as shellacking, panicking, and frolicking.
Origin and Etymology of fracking
by shortening & alteration from (hydraulic) fracturing
FRACKING Defined for English Language Learners
fracking
play
noun
Definition of fracking for English Language Learners
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: a method used for getting oil and gas from underground rocks by injecting liquid into the rocks so that they break apart
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