1 [U] a thick liquid that is found in rock underground
SYNPETROLEUM:
drilling for oil
2 [U] a form of PETROLEUM that is used as fuel and to make parts of machines move smoothly:
engine oil * an oil lamp / heater * Put some oil in the car.
3 [U,C] a smooth thick liquid that is made from plants or animals and is used in cooking:
olive oil * vegetable oils
4 [U,C] a smooth thick liquid that is made from plants, minerals, etc. and is used on the skin or hair:
lavender bath oil * suntan oil
seealsoESSENTIALOIL
5 [U] (also oils [pl.]) coloured paint containing oil used by artists:
a painting done in oils * landscapes in oil
seealsoOILPAINT
6 [C] = OILPAINTING:
Among the more important Turner oils was 'Venus and Adonis'.
seealsoOILY, CASTOROIL, CODLIVEROIL, LINSEEDOIL
IDIOMS see BURNv., POUR
verb [VN] to put oil onto or into sth, for example a machine, in order to protect it or make it work smoothly:
He oiled his bike and pumped up the tyres.
IDIOMS
oil the wheels (BrE) (AmE grease the wheels) to help sth to happen easily and without problems, especially in business or politics
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for oil is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is oil a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, oil is tagged as noun.
Does oil appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — oil appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
