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Ferrari's first fully electric car, breaking its tradition of roaring petrol engines, will be unveiled on Oct. 9 in Maranello.—Giulio Piovaccari, USA Today, 1 May 2025 But the petrol engine works overtime to keep the electric motor’s battery topped up, and emits quite a racket under acceleration.—Matthew MacConnell, Forbes.com, 31 Mar. 2025 The subsidy was quickly reinstated after petrol prices tripled.—John Hyatt, Forbes, 17 Feb. 2025 The new teaser above sees Sanon’s character, Mukti, walking through a running battle in a city holding a can of petrol.—Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 28 Jan. 2025 See All Example Sentences for petrol
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from French pétrole "petroleum, any of various products distilled from petroleum," going back to Old French petteroile, petrole "mineral oil, petroleum," borrowed from Medieval Latin petroleum — more at petroleum
Note:
The use of the word in English is apparently owed to a cooperative endeavor by the British distilling and oil refining firm Carless, Capel and Leonard and the engineer Frederick Richard Simms, who had purchased the rights to Gottlieb Daimler's gasoline-powered engine. Though an attempt to register petrol as a trademark was unsuccessful, Carless, Capel and Leonard continued to use it as a marketing name. Note that French pétrole (rather than essence de pétrole) is used for distilled petroleum products by Gustave Richard in Les nouveaux moteurs à gaz et à pétrole (Paris, 1892). The now usual French word essence for "gasoline" is shortened from essence de pétrole.
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