Word.ws English Dictionary

paraffin

/ˈpæɹ.ə.fɪn/US/ˈpɛɹ.ə.fɪn/

paraffin noun: a petroleum-based thin and colourless fuel oil.

Noun

paraffin (countable and uncountable, plural paraffins)

  1. (Ireland, UK) A petroleum-based thin and colourless fuel oil.
    • She poured paraffin on the dry floors and on the pandanus-mats, and then she set fire.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 57”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
    • The paper found high levels of phased-out flame retardants like PCBs and PBDEs, as well as allegedly safe, newer replacements chemicals, such as chlorinated paraffins and organophosphates, across the globe.2023 October 18, Tom Perkins, “Flame retardant pollution threatens wildlife on all continents, research finds”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    kerosene
  2. Any member of the alkane hydrocarbons.
  3. Paraffin wax.

Verb

paraffin (third-person singular simple present paraffins, present participle paraffining, simple past and past participle paraffined)

  1. To impregnate or treat with paraffin.
  2. To embed in paraffin wax.

paraffin meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and Malayalam

paraffin in Tamil

வெண்மெழுகு, கல்மெழுகு

paraffin in Marathi

paraffin
रॉकेल rŏkel

paraffin in Bengali

একটি পেট্রোলিয়ামজাত মোম, তেল

paraffin in Malayalam

പാരഫിൻ മെഴുക്
More languagesFewer languages
paraffin in Kannada
ಮೇಣ mēṇa
paraffin in Tagalog
malapagkit, parapina
paraffin in Thai
พาราฟิน

Examples of paraffin in a sentence

  • In the past, Monsanto made nylon carpet fibres containing a paraffin wax delustrant.
  • "I had foreseen it and I had put some cholesterine among the paraffin in the zinc pail."
  • The serious misresult of blindness comes not at all after paraffin of high melting point.

All 10 example sentences with paraffin

Synonyms of paraffin

Forms of paraffin

Noun
pluralparaffins
alternative form (dated)paraffine
Verb
third-person singular presentparaffins
present participleparaffining
past participleparaffined
pastparaffined

Plural of paraffin: paraffins

Origin of paraffin

From Latin paraffinum, from parum (too little) + affinis (related, affinity). Therefore low affinity or being chemically neutral.

Words formed from paraffin

Phrases with paraffin

Questions about paraffin

What does paraffin mean?
Paraffin means a petroleum-based thin and colourless fuel oil.
What is paraffin in Tamil?
Paraffin in Tamil is வெண்மெழுகு, கல்மெழுகு. See Paraffin meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is paraffin?
Paraffin can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce paraffin?
Paraffin is pronounced /ˈpæɹ.ə.fɪn/ (UK).
What is the plural of paraffin?
The plural of paraffin is paraffins.

Words near paraffin in the dictionary

  1. parafencer
  2. parafencing
  3. parafermion
  4. parafermionic
  5. parafermions
  6. paraffin
  7. paraffin oil
  8. paraffin oils
  9. paraffin paper
  10. paraffin papers
  11. paraffin scale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paraffin (page history and authors); paraffin (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); रॉकेल (Marathi) (page history and authors); paraffin (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); paraffin (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಮೇಣ (Kannada) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-paraffin.wav.

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