oil

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Liquid fat.
2. (countable, uncountable)Petroleum-based liquid used as fuel or lubricant.
3. (countable, uncountable)Petroleum.

   “Oil is found in countries such as Saudi Arabia and is transported all over the world.”

   “The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices). It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber.”

4. (countable)An oil painting.

   “Yet, in another way, I was unable to put Picasso's oils in the same class as Cezanne's, or even (which will no doubt shock many readers) as Renoir's.”

5. (countable, uncountable)Oil paint.

   “I prefer to paint in oil”

6. (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of oxygen-iodine laser.

verb

1. (transitive)To lubricate with oil.

   “Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.”

   “Platform faces in Holland are further back from the track than they are in Britain, and it is a common thing to see a driver standing quite comfortably between his engine and the platform while oiling the motion.”

   “The face which emerged was not reassuring.[…]. He was not a mongol but there was a deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.”

2. (transitive)To grease with oil for cooking.
3. (transitive)To fuel with oil.
4. (idiomatic, intransitive)To say in an unctuous manner.

   “"Do you need a drink?" oils Robert Ryan to the disinterested Stanwyck in Clash By Night; "Let's say that's what I need," she sneers back.”

name

1. (countable, uncountable)A surname from Indonesian
2. (countable, uncountable)A township in Perry County, Indiana, United States, named after Oil Creek (Ohio River tributary).