Refineries

How to spell refineries

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce refineries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does refineries mean?

1. nounIndustrial plants where crude substances such as oil, metal, or sugar are purified and processed into usable products.

Refineries in a sentence

• The coastal city is home to three large oil refineries that employ thousands of workers.

• Crude oil is shipped to refineries where it is separated into petrol, diesel, and other fuels.

Where does refineries come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back through 'refine' to the French 'fin', meaning 'fine, pure, or delicate', which itself descended from the Latin 'finis', literally 'an end, limit, or boundary'. In late Latin and Old French the sense slid from 'an end point' toward 'the highest quality', the idea being that something refined had reached the finished, perfected state. English built the verb 'refine' in the sixteenth century by adding the prefix 're-' (here suggesting a thorough or repeated process) to that root, meaning to purify or free from impurity. The noun 'refinery', for the building or plant where crude materials such as oil or sugar are purified, was then formed with the place-suffix '-ery', the same ending seen in 'bakery' and 'brewery'. The plural simply changes the final '-y' to '-ies', which is the spelling trap: writers must remember the single 'n', the '-er-' before the ending, and the '-ies' rather than '-ys'.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• fine (to purify)
• -ery (place where an activity happens)
• -ies (plural)