fuel

From Middle English fewell, from Old French fouaille, feuaille (“firewood, kindling”), from feu (“fire”), from Late Latin focus (“fire”), from Latin focus (“hearth”). Cognate with Spanish fuego (“fire”), and Portuguese fogo (“fire”). Doublet of focus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːəl/, /ˈfjʊəl/, /ˈfjuːl/, /ˈfɪu̯(ə)l/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈfjuwəɫ] (some speakers)

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊəl

fuel (countable and uncountable, plural fuels)

1. Substance consumed to provide energy through combustion, or through chemical or nuclear reaction.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.

2. Substance that provides nourishment for a living organism; food.
   • 2021 February 16, Charlie Berens and DudeDad, The 5 People on the Ski Slopes:

     A little fuel to get down the mountain.

3. (figuratively) Something that stimulates, encourages or maintains an action.

   His books were fuel for the revolution.

   Money is the fuel for economy.

   That film was nightmare fuel!

   • 2006 June 15, “Ammunition: the fuel of conflict”, in Oxfam International‎:

     Small arms ammunition is the fuel that keeps many of the world’s conflicts raging.

fuel (third-person singular simple present fuels, present participle (US) fueling or fuelling, simple past and past participle (US) fueled or fuelled)

1. To provide with fuel.
   • 1959 May, “Talking of Trains: By diesel m.u. to Moorgate”, in Trains Illustrated, page 235:

     The workings now employ ten twin-units, which are fuelled at Hornsey but return to Cambridge diesel depot for their weekly maintenance; [...].

2. To exacerbate, to cause to grow or become greater.

• Fuelled and fuelling are Commonwealth spellings. Fueled and fueling are US spellings and common in Canada.

• flue, fule

Unadapted borrowing from English fuel, itself from Old French fouaille.

• IPA^(key): /fjul/

• Audio

  (file)

fuel m (plural fuels)

1. Alternative form of fioul

• “fuel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

fuel

1. Alternative form of fewell

Borrowed from English fuel.

fuel m (plural fueles)

1. fuel oil

• “fuel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014