Word.ws English Dictionary

cosmoline

cosmoline noun: a substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffins.

Noun

cosmoline (countable and uncountable, plural cosmolines)

  1. A substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffins.

Verb

cosmoline (third-person singular simple present cosmolines, present participle cosmolining, simple past and past participle cosmolined)

  1. To coat with cosmoline.
    • With the Model 1917 tripod, the pintle should be removed from the socket from time to time, wiped clean and lightly oiled or cosmolined where there is friction between it and the socket.1930, The R.O.T.C. Manual, Infantry: 1st-2nd year advanced, page 178
    • Now, as I understand it you testified that that would lead to the inference that they did not fear an attack and you said that they had the guns themselves there on the ships but they were cosmolined and could not fire.1946, United States. Congress. Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings, Seventy-ninth Congress

Forms of cosmoline

Noun
pluralcosmolines
Verb
third-person singular presentcosmolines
present participlecosmolining
past participlecosmolined
pastcosmolined

Origin of cosmoline

Probably from cosmetic + Latin oleum (“oil”).

Questions about cosmoline

What does cosmoline mean?
Cosmoline means a substance obtained from the residues of the distillation of petroleum, essentially the same as vaseline, but of somewhat stiffer consistency, and consisting of a mixture of the higher paraffins.
What part of speech is cosmoline?
Cosmoline can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of cosmoline?
The plural of cosmoline is cosmolines.

Words near cosmoline in the dictionary

  1. cosmolabe
  2. cosmolabes
  3. cosmolater
  4. cosmolaters
  5. cosmolatry
  6. cosmoline
  7. cosmolined
  8. cosmolines
  9. cosmolining
  10. cosmologic
  11. cosmological

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cosmoline (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cosmoline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cosmoline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.