petrolize

P3E1T1R1O1L1I1Z10E1

verb

To treat (water) with kerosene in order to exterminate mosquitoes.

Scrabble 20

Meanings

verbpetrolize (third-person singular simple present petrolizes, present participle petrolizing, simple past and past participle petrolized)

present singular third person petrolizes · participle present petrolizing · participle past petrolized · past petrolized

  1. transitiveTo treat (water) with kerosene in order to exterminate mosquitoes.
    1 more example

    Over a four-year period the RF led a large-scale assault on yellow fever's Aedes aegypti mosquito vector, organizing a small army of Mexican and American doctors and local assistants and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to spray, petrolize, drain, fill, and deposit larvicidal fishes in virtually every home, breeding site, and stagnant water source in the region of Veracruz.

    2003, Diego Armus, Disease in the History of Modern Latin America: From Malaria to AIDS
  2. transitiveTo convert into a petroleum-based economy.

    Despite the efforts taken to forestall them, Mexico found itself with all the symptoms of a “petrolized” economy.

    2014, Douglas C. Bennett, Transnational Corporations versus the State
    2 more examples

    Once oil accounts for 30 percent of a nation's exports, the money petrolizes the place, the same way human slavery changed Rome, Brazil, and the U.S. South.

    2012, Andrew Nikiforuk, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, page 182

    The Mexican economy did not 'petrolize', as happened in Venezuela, since oil production represented only between 10 per cent and 14 per cent of GDP in this period.

    2017, Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, editor, The Spread of Modern Industry to the Periphery since 1871, page 302

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

petrolize. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/petrolize

MLA

“petrolize.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/petrolize. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “petrolize,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/petrolize.

Source: petrolize on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.