Word.ws English Dictionary

refuel

/ɹiːˈfjuːəl/

refuel verb: to refill with fuel.

Verb

refuel (third-person singular simple present refuels, present participle (US) refueling or (UK) refuelling, simple past and past participle (US) refueled or (UK) refuelled)

  1. (ambitransitive) To refill with fuel.
    • […] bundle the sorted, weighed, zipcoded parcels aboard the already refueled aircraft, which speedily take off […]1989, Richard L. Daft, Organization theory and design
    • On a vast, dry lakebed called Tianshuihai, we came to a community of sorts, a desperate huddle of concrete and mud structures. My map labeled the region “Soda Plain,” and it seemed a long time since any water had gathered there. It was also, evidently, earthquake country. Buildings, many of them...1991, Jeremy Schmidt, Himalayan Passage: Seven Months in the High Country of Tibet, Nepal, China, India, & Pakistan, Seattle: The Mountaineers, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 117

Noun

IPA/ˈɹiːfjuːəl/

refuel (plural refuels)

  1. An act or instance of refilling with fuel.

Examples of refuel in a sentence

  • The military post and gas depot where Qu stopped to refuel had been shored up by heavy concrete buttresses.1991, Jeremy Schmidt, Himalayan Passage: Seven Months in the High Country of Tibet, Nepal, China, India, & Pakistan, Seattle: The...
  • In his statement, Miliband said the two flights had refuelled at Diego Garcia.2008 February 22, Richard Norton-Taylor and Julian Borger, “Embarrassed Miliband admits two US rendition flights refuelled on British...
  • The United States refuels military jets and provides intelligence support to the military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, that is trying to defeat Houthi insurgents in Yemen.2015 December 22, Somini Sengupta, “Saudi-Led War in Yemen Frays Ties With the U.S.”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on...
  • The president of the FIA, Jean Todt, has said he would like to see a return of in-race refuelling to Formula One as a way to improve the sport.2019 July 12, Giles Richards, “FIA president Jean Todt calls for return of refuelling during races”, in The Guardian:

All 15 example sentences with refuel

Forms of refuel

Verb
third-person singular presentrefuels
present participle USrefueling
present participle UKrefuelling
past participle USrefueled
past USrefueled
past participle UKrefuelled
past UKrefuelled
Noun
pluralrefuels

Past tense of refuel: refueled or refuelled

Origin of refuel

From re- + fuel.

Words formed from refuel

Words that rhyme with refuel

Questions about refuel

What does refuel mean?
Refuel means to refill with fuel.
How do you use refuel in a sentence?
The military post and gas depot where Qu stopped to refuel had been shored up by heavy concrete buttresses.
What part of speech is refuel?
Refuel can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce refuel?
Refuel is pronounced /ɹiːˈfjuːəl/.
What is the past tense of refuel?
The past tense of refuel is refueled.

Words near refuel in the dictionary

  1. refucks
  2. refudiate
  3. refudiated
  4. refudiates
  5. refudiating
  6. refuel
  7. refuelable
  8. refueled
  9. refueler
  10. refuelers
  11. refueling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refuel (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-refuel.wav.

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