From Middle English fuayle, from Old French fouaille, feuaille (“firewood, kindling”), from feu (“fire”), from Late Latin focus (“fire”), from Latin focus (“hearth”), whence English focus. Cognate with Spanish fuego (“fire”), and Portuguese fogo (“fire”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːəl/, /ˈfjuːl/
  • (US) IPA^(key): [ˈfjuwəɫ] (some speakers)

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːəl, -uːl

fuel (countable and uncountable, plural fuels)

1. Substance consumed to provide energy through combustion, or through chemical or nuclear reaction.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎^[1]:

     More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.

   • 2024 November 8, Luz Pena, “California's gas prices could have major increase with passing of new fuel standards”, in ABC7 News‎^[2]:

     In a press release, CARB expanded on their decision. "The LCFS reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by setting a declining carbon intensity target for transportation fuels used in California; producers that don't meet established benchmarks buy credits from those that do. This system has generated $4 billion in annual private sector investment toward a cleaner transportation sector."

2. Substance that provides nourishment for a living organism; food.
   • 2021 February 16, Charlie Berens and DudeDad, The 5 People on the Ski Slopes:

     A little fuel to get down the mountain.

3. (figuratively) Something that stimulates, encourages or maintains an action.

   His books were fuel for the revolution.

   Money is the fuel for economy.

   That film was nightmare fuel!

   • 2006 June 15, “Ammunition: the fuel of conflict”, in Oxfam International‎^[3]:

     Small arms ammunition is the fuel that keeps many of the world’s conflicts raging.

fuel (third-person singular simple present fuels, present participle (US) fueling or (UK) fuelling, simple past and past participle (US) fueled or (UK) fuelled)

1. (transitive) To provide with fuel.
   • 1957, Neville Shute, chapter 2, in On the Beach‎^[4], New York: William Morrow & Co:

     […] Lieutenant Hirsch appeared with a sheaf of signals in his hand. He took these from the young man and read them through. Mostly they dealt with routine matters of the fuelling and victualling, but one from the Third Naval Member’s office was unexpected.

   • 1959 May, “Talking of Trains: By diesel m.u. to Moorgate”, in Trains Illustrated, page 235:

     The workings now employ ten twin-units, which are fuelled at Hornsey but return to Cambridge diesel depot for their weekly maintenance; [...].

   • 2005, Harry Turtledove, Alternate Generals III, unnumbered page:

     "Well, we do need to keep some of it on hand, donchaknow. For fueling the cookfires and all that rot."

2. (transitive) To exacerbate, to cause to grow or become greater.
   • 2023 December 8, Jennifer Senior, “What Will Happen to the American Psyche If Trump Is Reelected?”, in The Atlantic‎^[5]:

     There were times, during the first two years of the Biden presidency, when I came close to forgetting about it all: the taunts and the provocations; the incitements and the resentments; the disorchestrated reasoning; the verbal incontinence; the press conferences fueled by megalomania, vengeance, and a soupçon of hydroxychloroquine.

• Fuelled and fuelling are Commonwealth spellings. Fueled and fueling are US spellings and common in Canada.

• refuel

• flue, fule

Unadapted borrowing from English fuel, itself from Old French fouaille.

• IPA^(key): /fjul/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

fuel m (plural fuels)

1. alternative form of fioul

• “fuel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

fuel

1. (Late Middle English) alternative form of fuayle

Borrowed from English fuel.

fuel m (plural fueles)

1. fuel oil

• “fuel”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

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