Advertisement

gasoline (n.)

"light, volatile liquid obtained from distillation of petroleum," 1864, a variant of gasolene (from 1863 in Britain), which apparently was a trade name at first, from gas (n.1) in its then-popular loose sense of "compound of gases used for illuminating and heating purposes;" the -ol probably here represents Latin oleum "oil" and the ending is from the chemical suffix -ine (2). Shortened form gas was in common use in U.S. by 1897. Gas station as a fuel filling station for automobiles recorded by 1924.

Others are reading

Advertisement
Definitions of gasoline from WordNet

gasoline (n.)
a volatile flammable mixture of hydrocarbons (hexane and heptane and octane etc.) derived from petroleum; used mainly as a fuel in internal-combustion engines;
Synonyms: gasolene / gas / petrol
From wordnet.princeton.edu