1854 A. Gesner in U.S. Patent Rep. 462 The new product or composition of hydrocarbon for illuminating and other purposes called..Kerocene.

1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products Kerosene, a liquid hydro-carbon obtained from a species of bituminous shale in New Brunswick.

1864 E. A. Murray Ella Norman II. 206 He had brought in..a large tin of kerosine, to fill up and light the lamps in the bar.

1881 H. Watts Dict. Chem. VIII. 1509 Illuminating Oil, Petroleum, Kerosene, Paraffin Oil, Refined Paraffin, has a large and increasing consumption for lamps, etc.

1894 Dublin Rev. Oct. 434 The American oil gives about 80 per cent. of kerosene.

1925 Proc. Amer. Soc. Testing Materials 25 287 The sub-committee [on nomenclature] wishes to call particular attention to the spelling of the word ‘kerosine’. This matter was brought to our attention by the Executive Committee of the Standardization Committee of the Institution of Petroleum Technologists, it being pointed out that the ending ‘ene’ is very generally applied to pure hydrocarbons. The suffix ‘ine’ already applied to gasoline is therefore also applied to kerosine.

1933 Industr. Chemist IX. 227/2 High sulphur, low quality, off-colour kerosene distillates..may be hydrogenated.

1949 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) IX. 389/2 The word ‘kerosene’..is an alternative name with paraffin oil (British) and coal oil (American).

1950 Inst. Petroleum Rev. IV. 9/1 The American Society for Testing Materials and the Institute of Petroleum..desire to reiterate their strong recommendation for international recognition of the spelling kerosine.

1951 C. R. Noller Textbk. Org. Chem. iv. 53 Previous to 1910, kerosene was the most important product derived from petroleum.

1951 C. R. Noller Textbk. Org. Chem. iv. 53 The demand for the kerosene fraction is increasing again, since it is being used as the fuel for gas turbines and jet engines.

1954 Chem. & Engin. News 5 Apr. 1386/3 ‘Kerosene’ is commoner than ‘kerosine’. The ASTM [sc. American Society for Testing Materials] and ASA [sc. American Standards Association] have preferred ‘kerosine’, probably in order to make it consistent with ‘gasoline’, and CA [sc. Chemical Abstracts] has adopted ‘kerosine’ as the choice of an authoritative group in the petroleum field.

1957 I. Frazee & P. V. Eshelman Tractors & Crawlers i. 14 Kerosene and distillate..will burn satisfactorily in engines which are designed for low-grade fuels.

1960 B.S.I. News Dec. 25 (heading) Kerosine (paraffin) unflued space heaters.

1961 Amer. Speech 36 27 Fuel for lamps: Kurath found kerosene in general use through the North. The Atlas field interviewer, on the other hand, encountered coal oil in all three Cleveland interviews. Both terms are in widespread use today. 1. The commercial kerosene..increases in frequency with the youth and the cultivation of the informant. 2. Coal oil..appears to find its chief strength among the old and the uncultivated.

1961 D. Petrie Petroleum xi. 62 The heavier products condense on the lower trays, and the lighter ones like kerosine and petrol near the top.

1966 C. Orr Particulate Technol. ix. 439 Organic liquids like benzene, toluene, kerosine.

1966 G. W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Austral. & N.Z. i. 22 Trade has given currency to such words as kerosene: an English lady surprised a New Zealand chemist by asking for four gallons of ‘paraffin’ and he surprised her by supplying four gallons of ‘liquid paraffin’.

1967 W. A. Gruse Motor Fuels i. 6 The next higher-boiling fraction, kerosene, will cover the range about 180 to 290°C.

1970 Sci. Jrnl. Mar. 44/1 Aviation kerosine has a strong and unpleasant odour.

1948 V. Palmer Golconda x. 76 There was a bookcase made of kerosene-boxes nailed together.

1929 K. S. Prichard Coonardoo xxiv. 235 Coonardoo had kerosene buckets of water boiling.

1905 W. Baucke Where White Man Treads 304 He invited me to his whare, and seated me in the seat of honour—the slab bunk—while he made shift with the ubiquitous kerosene case store-all.

1909 Westm. Gaz. 3 Feb. 2/2 A gasolene- or kerosene-engine.

1920 D. H. Lawrence Women in Love ix. 125 The market-place was hot with kerosene flares.

1869 Bradshaw's Railway Man. 21 p. xii (advt.) Dietz & Co., petroleum and kerozene lamp manufacturers.

1879 Good Words Mar. 164 Pots, pans, vessels of wood, kerosene lamps.

1945 Coast to Coast 1944 75 It was a dingy hole all right, with a feeble kerosene-lamp trying to soak up some of the shadows.

1974 ‘I. Drummond’ Power of Bug viii. 113 The smell of gasoline could not have come from..kerosene lamps.

1863 E. Dicey Six Months in Federal States I. 21 A store of Kerozene oil had caught fire.

1896 B. M. Croker Village Tales 221 Treasure, which was buried in a kerosene-oil tin.

1889 Internat. Ann. Anthonys Photogr. Bull. 395 The color sensitiveness of a photograpic plate..judged by a kerosene spectrum.

1876 Daily News 22 Aug. 6 He lost his kerosene stove, and his square sail by the upset.

1946 Coast to Coast 1945 175 In the shed that had been fitted up with taps and shelves, a sink and an old smoky kerosene stove, Bennie was always happy.

1928 Manch. Guardian Weekly 10 Aug. 113/4 Mr. Churchill was deeply chagrined by being compelled to withdraw his proposed kerosene tax.

1891 C. Roberts Adrift in Amer. xii. 211 There was no difficulty in cooking it as an old kerosine tin furnished a pot, and..I soon had it boiling away.

1908 E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. i. 48 All convenient vessels available, even to the never-to-be despised kerosene tins, were utilised to store the nectar.

1937 Discovery June 169/2 Dozens of boys and girls..came along with calabashes, bags and kerosene tins full of locusts.

1969 Coast to Coast 1967–8 18 Kate had been boiling clothes in kerosene tins on the kitchen stove and carrying them outside to be rinsed in big tubs on the back veranda.

1932 W. Faulkner Light in August v. 107 He saw himself enclosed by cabinshapes, vague, kerosenelit.

1908 Westm. Gaz. 3 June 12/1 No sooner had the speeches concluded than..a light was set to the stack of kerosene-soaked pipes.

1883 Pall Mall Gaz. 20 Mar. 7/1 The cities that are, forsooth, to be kerosened and dynamited.

1894 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 394 The cook who strains his master's soup through a much kerosened lamp-cloth.