Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Something consumed to produce energy, especially.
  • noun A material such as wood, coal, gas, or oil burned to produce heat or power.
  • noun Fissionable material used in a nuclear reactor.
  • noun Nutritive material metabolized by a living organism; food.
  • noun Something that maintains or stimulates an activity or emotion.
  • intransitive verb To provide with fuel.
  • intransitive verb To support or stimulate the activity or existence of.
  • intransitive verb To take in fuel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To feed or furnish with fuel or combustible matter.
  • noun Any matter which serves by combustion for the production of fire; combustible matter, as wood, coal, peat, oil, etc.
  • noun Figuratively, anything that serves to feed or increase something conceived as analogous to flame, as passion or emotional excitement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any matter used to produce heat by burning; that which feeds fire; combustible matter used for fires, as wood, coal, peat, etc.
  • noun Anything that serves to feed or increase passion or excitement.
  • noun fuel consisting of small particles, as coal dust, sawdust, etc., consolidated into lumps or blocks.
  • transitive verb obsolete To feed with fuel.
  • transitive verb obsolete To store or furnish with fuel or firing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Substance consumed to provide energy through combustion, or through chemical or nuclear reaction.
  • noun Substance that provides nourishment for a living organism; food.
  • noun figuratively Something that stimulates, encourages or maintains an action.
  • verb to provide fuel
  • verb to exacerbate, to cause to grow or become greater

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb provide with fuel
  • noun a substance that can be consumed to produce energy
  • verb provide with a combustible substance that provides energy
  • verb stimulate
  • verb take in fuel, as of a ship

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English feuel, from Old French fouaille, feuaile, from Vulgar Latin *focālia, neuter pl. of *focālis, of the hearth or fireplace, from Latin focus, hearth, fireplace.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French fouaille, from feu ("fire").

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