big inchadj.n.
/ˌbɪɡ ˈɪn(t)ʃ/, U.S. /ˌbɪɡ ˈɪn(t)ʃ/ Originally and chiefly North American.
A. adj.
Of an oil or natural gas pipeline: having a large diameter.
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1942 Excavating Engineer 36 414/3 When completed and in operation, the ‘big inch’ line will deliver 300,000 barrels of East Texas crude oil each day to a yet undesignated point in southern Illinois.
1960 Oil's First Cent. 121 More and more of the news [sic] lines were ‘big inch’. Over one third of present crude trunk line mileage is 12-inch, or larger.
1960 Times Rev. Industry Dec. 79/2 The construction of two big-inch pipelines from the North Sea ports of Wilhelmshaven and Rotterdam... The first pipeline..is 28 in. dia... The second..is 24 in. dia.
2005 Pipeline & Gas Jrnl. (Nexis) Mar. 45 U.S. and Canadian pipeline contractors..desperately need the work a big-inch pipeline like this would bring.
B. n.
1. With the and capital initials. A large-diameter oil pipeline running from the Texas oilfields to the industrial north-east of the United States, laid during the Second World War (1939–45).The pipeline was purchased from the United States government by the Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation in 1947, and is now used for natural gas.
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1943 Times 19 May 3/5 An oil line known as the ‘Big Inch’, which was laid from Texas oilfields to Illinois..was broken to-day.
1949 Our Industry (Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.) (ed. 2) v. 165 The ‘Big Inch’ consists of 1,254 miles of 24-in. pipe and was used for crude.
1995 Jrnl. Southern Hist. 61 418 In wartime, the federal government built the Big Inch and Little Inch pipelines from Texas to the Northeast to transport petroleum.
2. gen. A large-diameter pipeline for oil or natural gas.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > oil and natural gas recovery equipment > [noun] > pipe-line > types of
oleoduct1886
riser pipe1886
trunk line1896
big inch1947
mud-line1974
1947 K. B. Shippen Great Heritage xiii. 179 They were in the habit of calling any pipe more than twelve inches in diameter a ‘big inch’.
1988 R. Hillis in G. Ursell Sky High 2 I'll go back to work on the Alaska big inch before I work with a honey.
2007 Calgary (Alberta) Sun (Nexis) 23 Sept. 35 The myopic National Energy Board rubber stamped the offensive Keystone pipeline project which sees 600,000 barrels-a-day of raw bitumen and 17,000 jobs flushed down the big inch to the States.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.n.1942