Word.ws English Dictionary

petrostate

petrostate noun: a state whose wealth stems from the sale of oil.

Noun

petrostate (plural petrostates)

  1. A state whose wealth stems from the sale of oil.
    • Under subsequent democratic regimes, as we shall see, some of these features of the petrostate were to change, while others were intensified.1997, Fernando Coronil, The magical state: nature, money, and modernity in Venezuela
    • The petrostate relies on oil as its fiscal foundation, rather than on the taxes paid by the citizens[…]2006, Donald S Rothchild, Edmond Joseph Keller, Africa-US Relations: Strategic Encounters

Examples of petrostate in a sentence

  • A couple of years ago, while most Canadians were out shovelling the sidewalk or sipping a coffee at Tim Hortons, the nation quietly became a petrostate.2009, Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent:
  • Most delegates arriving at Cop28 will have entered the desert city of Dubai along a 12-lane highway, reeking of petrol fumes: welcome to the petrostate of the United Arab Emirates.2023 December 1, Damian Carrington, Nina Lakhani, Oliver Milman, “Cop28 diary: expensive coffee, cheesy slogans and petrol fumes”, in The...
  • COPs have been held in petrostates before.2024 November 25, Laura Paddison, “The UN climate summit ended in bitterness and accusations of betrayal. Now fears are growing for its...

Forms of petrostate

pluralpetrostates

Origin of petrostate

From petro- + state.

Questions about petrostate

What does petrostate mean?
Petrostate means a state whose wealth stems from the sale of oil.
How do you use petrostate in a sentence?
A couple of years ago, while most Canadians were out shovelling the sidewalk or sipping a coffee at Tim Hortons, the nation quietly became a petrostate.
What part of speech is petrostate?
Petrostate is a noun.
What is the plural of petrostate?
The plural of petrostate is petrostates.

Words near petrostate in the dictionary

  1. petrospheres
  2. petrosquamosal
  3. petrosquamous
  4. Petrossian
  5. Petrossians
  6. petrostate
  7. petrostates
  8. Petrosyan
  9. petrotectonic
  10. petrothermal
  11. petrotympanic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petrostate (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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