petrol: [16] Petrol originally meant ‘mineral oil, extracted from the ground’ (what we would now call petroleum or, more loosely, simply oil); not until the end of the 19th century was it applied to the ‘fuel refined from this’. The word was borrowed from French pétrole, which in turn came from Latin petroleum (itself taken over directly into English in the 16th century).
This means etymologically ‘rock-oil’. It was formed from petra ‘rock’ and oleum ‘oil’. Other English words that go back to Latin petra or its Greek source pétrā include parsley, petrify [16], saltpetre [16] (so called because it forms a crust like salt on rocks), and the name Peter (a reference to Jesus calling the apostle Simon the ‘rock on which he would build his church’ – hence ‘Simon Peter’). => parsley, petrify, saltpetre
petrol (n.)
"gasoline," 1895, from French pétrol (1892); earlier used (1580s) in reference to the unrefined substance, from Middle French petrole "petroleum," from Old French (13c.), from Medieval Latin petroleum (see petroleum).
例文
1. The crowds became violent and threw petrol bombs at the police.
人の群れが暴れ始め、警察にガソリン弾を投げつけた。
2.There 's no petrol ，so it 's very difficult to transport goods.
はガソリンがないので、荷物を運ぶのは難しい。
3.The boom of the 1980 s led to a taste for petrol -guzzling cars.
1980年代の経済繁栄は人々に高燃費の自動車を好きにさせた。
4.The price of petrol is coming down by four pence a gallon.
ガソリンの価格はガロン当たり4ペンス下がった。
5.Every eventuality is covered，from running out of petrol to needing water.