Carbon Oil

English Alternative forms en carbon oil Etymology From en carbon oil. Coined in the early 1850s in Pennsylvania by Samuel Martin Kier, an American industrialist who refined crude petroleum into an illuminant. Kier chose a marketable name for his new lamp fuel to emphasize both its petroleum origin and its difference from whale oil. According to linguist Hans Kurath, this term may be heard from the western edge of the Alleghenies to beyond the Ohio line.Kurath Hans Hans Kurath 1949 A Word Geography of the Eastern United States University of Michigan Press 9780472085323 Noun - carbon oil en obsolete Western Pennsylvania English Distilled petroleum used as lamp oil; early kerosene. en S. M. Kier., Petroleum, Pittsburgh Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass https://fohbcvirtualmuseum.org/galleries/medicines/s-m-kier-petroleum-pittsburgh/ 2020 ... lands near Tarentum, east of Pittsburgh, along the Allegheny River ... The region was also notorious for the pernicious infiltration of petroleum, called at the time Carbon Oil, which was a popular rather than scientific term. (2020). S. M. Kier. Petroleum Pittsburgh. Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass. https://web.archive.org/web/20260311053756/https://fohbcvirtualmuseum.org/galleries/medicines/s-m-kier-petroleum-pittsburgh/ 11 March 2026 Related terms en coal oil References en Liquids Oil industry Petroleum en genericized trademarks