fracking

noun frack·ing \ ˈfra-kiŋ \

|Updated on: 15 Aug 2018

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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frack

play \ˈfrak\ verb

fracking was our Word of the Day on 06/26/2014. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of fracking from the Web

Treasurer Walker Stapleton, a relation to President George W. Bush, has looked past the primary, criticizing Polis’ $12 million investment in his campaign and the congressman’s support for local control of fracking.

— james anderson, The Seattle Times, "Democratic candidates in close race for governor nomination," 26 June 2018
Treasurer Walker Stapleton, a relation to President George W. Bush, has looked past the primary, criticizing Polis’ $12 million investment in his campaign and his support for local control of fracking.

— Washington Post, "Gubernatorial races top Colorado’s mid-term primaries," 25 June 2018
Tisha Schuller, an environmentalist who came to think fracking could help reduce emissions, received regular death threats.

— nathanael johnson, WIRED, "Where Can Climate Activists Find Common Ground?," 9 July 2018
For this reason, as the fracking industry has eaten into Big Coal’s market share over the past decade, C02 emissions at U.S. power plants have fallen by more than 25 percent.

— eric levitz, Daily Intelligencer, "Natural Gas Is Hurting the Climate More Than We Thought," 22 June 2018
The last decade or so has seen a revolution in American energy production, however, led by techniques including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling.

— david koenig, Anchorage Daily News, "US soon to leapfrog Saudis, Russia as top oil producer," 12 July 2018
Grassroots mobilizations and other forms of pressure helped nudge America’s political leadership to halt pipelines and craft new policies on climate change, fracking, and toxics.

— christopher sellers, Vox, "How Republicans came to embrace anti-environmentalism," 6 July 2018
Researchers found that methane spiked in some water wells but attributed rising methane levels to natural variability, not drilling and fracking.

— Washington Post, "Studies show groundwater holding own against drilling boom," 18 June 2018
Yet, thanks to the fracking revolution, the United States is now one of the world’s biggest producers of oil.

— evan horowitz, BostonGlobe.com, "Gas and mortgages are getting expensive again. Welcome to a normal economy," 22 May 2018

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.