Word.ws English Dictionary

striking oil

striking oil is the present participle and gerund of strike oil.

Meaning of strike oil

Verb

strike oil (third-person singular simple present strikes oil, present participle striking oil, simple past struck oil, past participle struck oil or (rare or archaic) stricken oil)

  1. To find petroleum when boring for it.
    • In today's oil patch you strike oil the modern way – the geologist examines the rock cuttings brought up in the drilling mud to see if there is any oil on them as John had done here.2015, Mike Shepherd, Oil Strike North Sea: A first-hand history of North Sea oil, Luath Press Ltd, →ISBN
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic, informal) To have sudden good fortune, especially financially.
    • J. Paul Getty's formula for success sorts this idea out: “Rise early, work hard, strike oil.” That's good advice, but most of us will not strike oil. In fact we may become irritated by the idea that something spectacular must occur for success to emerge.2002, R. Wayne Pace, Organizational Dynamism: Unleashing Power in the Workforce, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 4

Questions about striking oil

What is striking oil the present participle and gerund of?
Striking oil is the present participle and gerund of strike oil.

Words near striking oil in the dictionary

  1. striking in
  2. striking it lucky
  3. striking it rich
  4. striking off
  5. striking off strength
  6. striking oil
  7. striking one's colors
  8. striking one's flag
  9. striking out
  10. striking plate
  11. striking plates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: striking oil (page history and authors); strike 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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