peak oil
peak oil noun: the peak of the Earth's oil production.
Noun
peak oil (uncountable)
- The peak of the Earth's oil production.
- Or more worrying, that after many years of false alarms, the world is truly beginning to run out of oil? That last question is at the center of a fierce debate. Adherents of the “peak oil” theory warn of a permanent oil shortage.2004 April 4, Daniel Yergin, “Imagining a $7-a-Gallon Future”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Another consequence of reaching "peak oil" is the debate it will surely provoke in the United States over whether we should avert the coming crisis by drilling in pristine lands and waters long considered off limits or by engaging in conservation and development of alternative fuel sources.2005 September 4, Carrie Abels Brattleboro, “The Breaking Point”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Examples of peak oil in a sentence
- Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.2012 July 2, George Monbiot, “We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all”, in The Guardian:
- What follows from this is that the idea of peak oil has gone up in flames.2012 November 12, Damian Carrington, “IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames”, in the Guardian:
Questions about peak oil
- What does peak oil mean?
- Peak oil means the peak of the Earth's oil production.
- How do you use peak oil in a sentence?
- Peak oil hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time.
- What part of speech is peak oil?
- Peak oil is a noun.
Words near peak oil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: peak oil (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: “peak oil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/peak_oil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.