1625 S. Purchas Pilgrimes II. vii. 936 Some [palm trees]..bear Grapes as bigge as Plummes, of an Orange colour..: those Grapes they peele to the stones, and thereof they make Oile, which they call Palme Oile.

1705 tr. W. Bosman New Descr. Coast of Guinea xvi. 285 The Palm-Oil..is obtained by contusion and expression.

1712 J. Browne tr. P. Pomet et al. Compl. Hist. Druggs I. 136 Palm Oil..is an unctuous Liquor, as thick as Butter.

1779 Farmer's Mag. May 147 The woody bark of the fruit, and the fruit itself..helps to supply the negroes with..soap, which they make by..boiling it with palm-oil.

1848 S. S. Ball Rep. Condition & Prospects Liberia 7 The palm tree grows spontaneously, out of which is produced the palm oil, the palm wine, the palm cabbage, and the palm butter.

1870 J. Yeats Nat. Hist. Commerce 204 Palm oil is used in England principally in the manufacture of yellow soap, but with the Africans it is an article of food.

1927 E. Lewis Trader Horn (1930) i. ii. 42 The smell of palm oil which we had taken on Board added to the discomfort produced by the heat.

1951 Chambers's Jrnl. Oct. 591/1 A West African palm-oil lunch with its inevitable trappings is a serious matter for even a youthful digestion.

1999 L. Mason Sweets & Sweet Shops 7 Vegetable fats important in confectionery, especially coconut oil and palm oil, have been imported only since the nineteenth century.

1863 R. F. Burton Wanderings W. Afr. II. 145 ‘Palm-oil-chop’ is the curry of Western Africa.

1897 M. Kingsley Trav. W. Afr. 208 The Negroes cook uniformly very well, and at moments are inspired in the direction of palm-oil chop and fish cooking.

2000 Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 9 Sept. 14 West African foods include Ashanti chicken..groundnut stew, palaver sauce, palm butter, palm-oil chop akara,..ginger beer and green tea with mint.

1874 ‘Old Shekarry’ Forest & Field x. 158 My fellow-passengers [on a voyage to West Africa in 1861] may be classed in the following categories..the commercial; traders, usually known as ‘Palm-oil Ruffians’ or ‘Coast Lambs’, a class of men much calumniated; [etc.].

1899 M. H. Kingsley W. Afr. Stud. Introd. 15 The courage and enterprise those men [who established the palm oil trade] displayed under the most depressing and deadly conditions made me proud of being a woman of the nation that turned out the ‘Palm oil ruffians’.

1923 H. H. Johnston Story of my Life viii. 172 There were several men like him as early as the middle 'eighties on the West African coast, utterly dissimilar from the character ascribed to the ‘Palm oil ruffian’ imagined and described by some tipsy British newspaper-writer of those days.

1625 T. Middleton Game at Chæss iii. sig. F Palme, oyle [?1625 (new ed.) Palme oyle; ?1625 (later ed.) Palme-oyle] will make a Purseuant relent.

1821 Acct. Peculations Coal Trade 5 I am well satisfied that palm oil will ensure you a new vat.

1867 Routledge's Every Boy's Ann. June 368 I had plenty of money, and ‘palm oil’ goes as far in those latitudes as in our more civilized communities.

1896 E. A. King Ital. Highways 190 Palm-oil will always produce temporary blindness in the officials.

1931 G. Irwin Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 140 Palm oil, money paid as a bribe or for protection against police interference.

1996 Economist (Nexis) 2 Mar. 44 Palm oil greases the wheels. Corruption is a normal business cost in Zimbabwe these days.