Gasoline - Etymology and Terminology

Etymology and Terminology

"Gasoline" is cited (under the spelling "gasolene") from 1863 in the Oxford English Dictionary. It was never a trademark, although it may have been derived from older trademarks such as "Cazeline" and "Gazeline".

Variant spellings of "petrol" have been used to refer to raw petroleum since the 16th century. "Petrol" was first used as the name of a refined petroleum product around 1870 by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard, who marketed it as a solvent. When the product later found a new use as a motor fuel, Frederick Simms, an associate of Gottlieb Daimler, suggested to Carless that they register the trade mark "Petrol", but by this time the word was already in general use, possibly inspired by the French pétrole, and the registration was not allowed. Carless registered a number of alternative names for the product, while their competitors used the term "motor spirit" until the 1930s.

In many countries, gasoline has a colloquial name derived from that of the chemical benzene (e.g., German Benzin, Dutch Benzine, Italian benzina, Chile bencina, Thai เบนซิน). Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay use the colloquial name nafta derived from that of the chemical naphtha.

The terms "mogas", short for motor gasoline, or "autogas", short for automobile gasoline, are used to distinguish automobile fuel from aviation gasoline, or "avgas". In British English, gasoline can refer to a different petroleum derivative historically used in lamps, but this usage is relatively uncommon.