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palm oil

palm oil noun: an edible plant oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).

Noun

palm oil (countable and uncountable, plural palm oils)

  1. An edible plant oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).
    • Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
  2. (slang) Money given as a bribe.

palm oil meaning in Tamil, Arabic, Malay and Indonesian

palm oil in Tamil

செம்பனைநெய், செம்பனை எண்ணெய், புல்லின மர எண்ணெய், புல்லின மர நெய், தாலநெய், தாலவெண்ணெய்

palm oil in Arabic

edible plant oil
زَيْت النَّخْلِ zayt an-naḵli

palm oil in Malay

edible plant oil
minyak kelapa sawit

palm oil in Indonesian

edible plant oil
minyak sawit
More languagesFewer languages
palm oil in Persian
روغن پالم rowġan-e pâlm, روغن نخل rowġan-e naxl
palm oil in Thai
น้ำมันปาล์ม nám-man-bpaam
palm oil in Myanmar
စားအုန်းဆီ ca:un:hci

Synonyms of palm oil

Forms of palm oil

pluralpalm oils
alternative formpalm-oil

Origin of palm oil

In the sense of a bribe, the phrase is a punning reference to the palm of the hand and also to oil as lubricant rather than foodstuff.

Questions about palm oil

What does palm oil mean?
Palm oil means an edible plant oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).
What is palm oil in Tamil?
Palm oil in Tamil is செம்பனைநெய், செம்பனை எண்ணெய், புல்லின மர எண்ணெய். See Palm oil meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is palm oil?
Palm oil is a noun.
What is the plural of palm oil?
The plural of palm oil is palm oils.

Words near palm oil in the dictionary

  1. palm mutes
  2. palm muting
  3. palm nut
  4. palm nuts
  5. palm off
  6. palm oil
  7. palm oils
  8. palm out
  9. palm print
  10. palm prints
  11. palm reader

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: palm oil (page history and authors); palm oil (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-palm oil.ogg.

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