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creosote.

A pale yellow oily liquid, containing phenols and similar compounds, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood tar, once used medicinally.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkɹiːəˌsəʊt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɹiəˌsoʊt/Canada, General-American/ˈkɹiːəˌsəʉt/Australia/ˈkɹiːəˌsɐʉt/New-Zealand
  1. A pale yellow oily liquid, containing phenols and similar compounds, obtained by the destructive distillation of wood tar, once used medicinally.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A similar brown liquid obtained from coal tar used as a wood preservative.

    countable · uncountable
  3. The creosote bush.

    countable
  4. A flammable black porous brittle glassy byproduct of wood burning, typically formed inside chimneys.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From German Kreosot in the 1830s, coined in 1832 by German natural philosopher Carl Ludwig, Baron Reichenbach, from Ancient Greek κρέας (kréas, “flesh”) + σωτήρ (sōtḗr, “preserver”) for its use as an antiseptic and meat-preservative. The creosote bush was named after its scent. By surface analysis, containing creo-.

verb/ˈkɹiːəˌsəʊt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɹiəˌsoʊt/Canada, General-American/ˈkɹiːəˌsəʉt/Australia/ˈkɹiːəˌsɐʉt/New-Zealand
  1. To apply creosote.

    transitive
    As the fence is exposed he will creosote it for protection.
Where this word comes from

From German Kreosot in the 1830s, coined in 1832 by German natural philosopher Carl Ludwig, Baron Reichenbach, from Ancient Greek κρέας (kréas, “flesh”) + σωτήρ (sōtḗr, “preserver”) for its use as an antiseptic and meat-preservative. The creosote bush was named after its scent. By surface analysis, containing creo-.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.