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Paraffin   /pˈɛrəfən/   Listen
Paraffin

noun
1.
From crude petroleum; used for candles and for preservative or waterproof coatings.  Synonym: paraffin wax.
2.
A series of non-aromatic saturated hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH(2n+2).  Synonyms: alkane, alkane series, methane series, paraffin series.
3.
(British usage) kerosine.  Synonym: paraffin oil.



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"Paraffin" Quotes from Famous Books



... the tranquil atmosphere settled down on the warm room; the brass lamp burned brightly with a faint and reassuring smell of paraffin; the fire presented a radiant cavern of red coals fringed by dancing flames; and Mr. Parker leaned forwards to shake off the ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... blackmailing value; thus towards the end of 1898, after the deal had been completed, the owners of these residences and estates were privately approached with the information that the coolie location, consisting of shelters built of scraps of iron, paraffin tins, and old pieces of wood, was to be removed to this site (probably to facilitate the transference of the present location site, which is also very valuable, to some other favourite), but that if sufficient inducement were offered by landowners in the neighbourhood, the decision ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... any account do so dangerous a thing as to put paraffin oil on your hair. Besides, the very bad smell of the oil would be most offensive to others if not ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various

... first to fade away, she was evidently the very first to neglect or otherwise maltreat them. She did not give them enough water, or left the door of her fern-ease open when she was cooking her dinner at the gas stove, or kept them too near the paraffin oil, or other like folly; and as for her temper, see what the gazelles did; as long as they did not know her "well," they could just manage to exist, but when they got to understand her real character, one after ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... insulated and the covering of silk that insulates it is wound on the ebonite bobbins just where my finger is. If it were wound single an extra current would be induced in the coils. The bobbins are saturated in hot paraffin wax... ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... a moderate case of wines and spirits, also to act as medicines; several dozens of coloured blankets for presents; waterproof sheets. A cask of paraffin oil was swung under the floor, and by it a little cooking-stove, while beside these swung a long box containing spades and shovels, for digging the waggon-wheels out of holes, tools for repairs, wrenches, and jacks and axes, till it seemed ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... but nothing upon it. This was remedied by making a large bag and filling it with hay. Then there were neither sheets, towels, nor table-clothes. This was irremediable, and I never missed the first or last. Candles were another loss, and we had only one paraffin lamp. I slept all night in spite of a gale which blew all Sunday and into Monday afternoon, threatening to lift the cabin from the ground, and actually removing part of the roof from the little room between the kitchen and living room, in which we ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... few belongings into the cave. First they took most of the little store of food that remained, the three hand-lamps and all the paraffin; there was but one tin. Then returning they fetched the bucket, the ammunition, and their clothes. Afterwards, as there was still no sign of Meyer, they even dared to drag in the waggon tent to make a shelter for Benita, and all the wood that they ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... old woman in an underground back kitchen. She was suffering with some complaint. When they knocked at the door she was terrified for fear it was the landlord. The room was in a most filthy condition, never having been cleaned. She had a penny paraffin lamp which filled the room with smoke. The old woman was at times totally unable to do anything for herself. The Officers looked ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... boxes of matches. 6 gallons paraffin. 1 tin methylated spirit. 10 boxes of flamers. 1 box of blue lights. 2 Primus stoves with spare parts and prickers. 1 Nansen aluminium cooker. 6 sleeping-bags. A few spare socks. A few candles and some blubber-oil ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... soon," Willesden, who was specially in charge of the stores, said. "It was a capital idea bringing that large spirit stove and the paraffin with us; even a native could not find any dry ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... I began a rather elaborate comparison of paraffin with beeswax—lanolin for use in grafting. Dr. Shelton had demonstrated that the latter was a good dressing for wounds and I assumed that in grafting, it would promote callousing. My experiment was partially frustrated by the loss of my melting pot which burned at about the time the work was half ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... purge may be taken once a week with advantage. Glauber's Salts (Sodium Sulphate), Cascara Sagrada, and liquid paraffin are all good, while Castor Oil Globules are ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... shop, I invented a device for multiplying copies of letters, which I sold to Mr. A. B. Dick, of Chicago, and in the years since it has been universally introduced throughout the world. It is called the 'Mimeograph.' I also invented devices for and introduced paraffin paper, now used universally for wrapping up candy, etc." The mimeograph employs a pointed stylus, used as in writing with a lead-pencil, which is moved over a kind of tough prepared paper placed on a finely grooved steel plate. The writing is thus traced ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... to introduce us to the late Mr. Charles Pease, as done in paraffin, with creped hair and bright, shiny glass eyes. Mr. Pease was undoubtedly England's most fashionable murderer of the past century and his name is imperishably enshrined in the British affections. The guide spoke of his life and works with deep and sincere feeling. He also ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... one side a circular hole 1.23 mm. in diameter (i.e. a little less than the 1/20th of an inch); and the box was placed in front of a paraffin lamp and on another occasion in front of a window; and both times the seedlings were manifestly bent after a few hours towards ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... their choice of a wax and wound dressing. In a series of carefully controlled tests, Sitton (23), found that a rosin and beeswax mixture with a filler gave results with pecans superior to the so-called "cold waxes" or asphalt emulsions. Paraffin and polyvinyl resin are often used for scion covering and to protect newly set buds. Shelton (20) has indicated certain qualities of a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... easier by help of the river-fog, which by nine o'clock—the hour agreed upon— had gathered to a thick grey consistency. If the dock were policed at this hour, no police, save by the veriest accident, could have detected the children crouching with 'Dolph behind a breastwork of paraffin-casks, and waiting for Bill's signal—the first two or three bars of The Blue Bells of Scotland whistled ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... a tiny flame sprang up, and then there flared a candle—one of those trench candles made of rolled newspapers and paraffin. It illumined ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... usual" when in Paris there are about 1800 of these small workshops where a woman dips Bengal Fire and grenades into a bath of paraffin! ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... proportion of stearoptene is said to be spermaceti, which is easily recognizable from its liability to settle down in a solid cake, and from its melting at 122 deg. Fahr., whereas stearoptene fuses at 91.4 deg. Fahr. Possibly paraffin wax would more easily ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... care by Mr. Walker. An old boiler flue was placed vertically, and closed at top by means of a removable wooden cover, the interior space being about 72 cubic feet. A temporary gasometer had been arranged at a suitable distance by means of a paraffin cask having a capacity of 6 cubic feet suspended inside a larger cask, and by this means the boiler was charged with a highly explosive mixture of gas and air in the proportion of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... prevent even so much as a pail of stagnant water offering harbor to these enemies. The grass of the meadows where the malaria mosquito breeds was cut short and kept short within three hundred feet of dwellers,—as far as the mosquito can fly. All ditches were disinfected with paraffin, and the natives were forced to observe sanitary laws. President Roosevelt, in his special message to Congress on the Panama Canal in 1906, stated that in the weekly house-to-house visit of the inspectors at the time he was in Panama but two mosquitoes were found. These were ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... averted, the Soeur used to light fresh candles around the tiny Holy Bebe on the still green Christmas-tree, and for a space we sat quietly enjoying the radiance. But by the time the last candle had flickered out, and the glow of a commonplace paraffin lamp lighted the gloom, nature again demanded nourishment; and we bade the prisoners farewell for the night, happy in the knowledge that supper, sleep, and breakfast would pleasantly while away the hours ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... the apparent proportion of stearoptene is said to be spermaceti, which is easily recognizable from its liability to settle down in a solid cake, and from its melting at 122 Fahr., whereas stearoptene fuses at 91.4 Fahr. Possibly paraffin wax would more ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... distilled from oil which comes from wells bored deep down in the ground in Pennsylvania, in the south of Russia, in Burma, and elsewhere. Also it is distilled in Scotland from oil shale, from which paraffin oil and wax and similar substances are produced. When the oil is brought to the surface it contains many impurities, and in its native form is unsuitable for motor engines. The crude oil is composed of a number of different kinds of oil; some being light and clear, others ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... necessary to store trees through the winter months, one of several procedures may be followed. If the trees are quite small, their tops may be dipped in melted paraffin or beeswax, not hot enough to injure the buds. If the trees are too large for this to be practical, wax may be painted on with a brush. Roots should be protected by ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... coming to that. For one thing, he isn't like the usual firebug at all. Ordinarily they start their fires with excelsior and petroleum, or they smear the wood with paraffin or they use gasoline, benzine, or something of that sort. This fellow apparently scorns such crude methods. I can't say how he starts his fires, but in every case I have mentioned we have found the remains of a wire. It has something to do with electricity - but what, I don't know. That's one ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... Miss Grey said simply: "It was only that my lamp has gone out; you know there isn't any gas on my floor, and I remembered you had paraffin for your reading lamp.... I'm so afraid of the dark. I know ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... companion ladder, and I followed cautiously. A complex odour of paraffin, past cookery, tobacco, and tar saluted ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... the better for a bath of paraffin," muttered John Peter, prying into the works. But Cai continued to stare at the plate on the wall, and was staring at it when a voice at the door called "Good ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... wedding feast and illuminating the sad page over which the candidate for university honours nods his shaven head. That oil fed lighthouses of the first order and illuminated viceregal balls and durbars before paraffin and kerosene inundated the earth. And it has other uses. For arresting premature baldness and preventing the hair turning grey its virtues are equalled by no other oil known to us, and there is a fortune awaiting ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... horse-radish sauce with relish, and does not care for artichokes and asparagus. Put yourself at its point of view, imagine the grey, dreary courtyard, the educated ladies who look like cooks, the smell of paraffin, the scantiness of interests and tasks—and you will understand N. and his readers. He is colourless; that is partly because the life he describes lacks colour. He is false because bourgeois writers cannot help being ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... like a bush Are facial assets to be prized, Denoting driving-power and push In men however undersized (Bear's grease or paraffin or both ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various

... and stood where the light of the evil-smelling little paraffin lamp fell upon his features, I recognised in the heavy jaw, the bull-neck and the close-cropped head, the Professor Dmitri Sclamowsky of the previous evening. Our eyes met, and I thought I detected a start of not altogether pleased surprise; but if this were so he recovered himself quickly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... the report that I, on receiving the news, had fainted. This, by provoking deeper sympathy with the hero and greater execration of the villain, acted like paraffin oil on the flames. Before the masters realised that anything more than disappointment was abroad, rebellion ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... revived the subject of paraffin. I notice that he always wound up with a plea that someone invent an apparatus to apply the paraffin. What I have here is an answer to the plea. This apparatus consists of a two and one-half inch pipe with a spray nozzle attached. The idea is to put into the tube hot ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... selected and stained. The fly-book stamps the fisherman even more truly than the topboot stamps the fox-hunter. Nor does the accomplished expert with the dry fly disdain with fat of deer to grease his line, nor with paraffin to dress his fly and make it float. But he keeps the paraffin in a leather case by itself, so that his coat may not remain redolent for months. From top to toe he is a fisherman. His boots are thick, even though he does not require waders; on his knees are leather pads to ward off rheumatism; ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... fenced out or fenced in, according to the side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their smells without consenting to know ...
— In the Cage • Henry James

... kind of clothes, and dress my warps different from anybody else. It was in company with Mr William Greenwood that I invented a warp-slaying machine. This we sold to Mr R. L. Hattersley. I also invented a patent wax for use in warp-dressing and weaving. This, I intended, should supersede Stephenson's paraffin wax, and that it would have done, I feel sure, had it been properly placed in the market; but of all people in the world there is none like a druggist for squeezing profit out of his wares. He will either have ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... away on either side. Six immense oaks spread their untrimmed branches above the high stoep, and before the house, where patches of yellow-green grass grew ragged as a vagabond's hair, a Kerry cow was pegged out and half a dozen black babies disported themselves amongst the acorns. Dozens of old paraffin tins stained with rust, and sawed-off barrels bulging asunder lined the edge of the stoep, all filled with geraniums, begonias, cacti, red lilies, and feathery bamboos. Every plant had a flower, and every flower was a brilliant, vital thing. Other decorations were a chopping-block, ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... cheerfulness, as she turned another wire in the sock, and set the balls of wool dancing on the floor with the speed at which she worked. "I've had a real good day to-day, and I'm feeling that I could just sit for a lang while the nicht, if only the paraffin oil wadna' go down so quick. But the longer I sit, it burns the more, and it's getting ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... expelled during sterilization, they are either tied down with a strong twine or with some contrivance such as the cork holder. In order that mold germs may not enter the must through the corks, especially if a poor quality of cork is used, the necks of the corked bottles are dipped in heated paraffin before putting on the caps, or the corks are sealed down with sealing wax. It is also well to keep the bottles on their rider to prevent the corks ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... hard to understand that Mr. Edison invented the American District Messenger call-box system, which has been superseded by the telephone, but very few people know when they are eating caramels and other sticky confectionery that wax or paraffin paper was invented by Edison. Also the tasimeter, an instrument so delicate that it measures the heat of the most distant star, Arcturus. One of the few vacations Mr. Edison allowed himself was when he traveled to the Rocky Mountains to witness a total eclipse of the sun and experiment on certain ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... The additional quantity of kerosene obtained on redistilling the tailings brings up the total yield of this product to about 42 per cent. of the crude oil. The gas oil is sold for the manufacture of illuminating gas. The residue is distilled for lubricating oils and paraffin. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... half-hour discussing where we should eat the provisions we had brought from Catania and drink the wine we had bought at Mascalucia on the way. The discussion ended by our being received in a peasant's hut, where we spread a table for ourselves and the woman stood a low paraffin lamp in the middle of the cloth. This is a bad plan, the light dazzles one for seeing those sitting opposite and their shadows are thrown big and black on the wall and ceiling so that one cannot see the room, but I should say it was like Orlando's bedroom in the contadino's cottage on Ricuzzu's ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... just as a raw mist descends on mountain and forest, I reach the Lapp's house. I enter. But though I meet with nothing but kindness, a Lapp hut contains little that is interesting. There are spoons and knives of bone on the peat wall, and a small paraffin lamp hangs from the roof. The Lapp himself is a dull nonentity who can neither tell fortunes nor conjure. His daughter has gone across the field; she has learned to read, but not to write, at the village school. The two old people, husband and wife, are fools. The whole family ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... tackle-maker's catalogue, with the "things" which he considered generously requisite. Then the girls consulted the pamphlet, and, backed of course by the vicar, insisted that a silver spring balance in morocco case (to weigh up to or down from 4 lb.), an oil bottle for odourless paraffin, and other small trifles were needful. Cousin gave them all credit for gratitude evinced after his second trip to town, and any reader must give him credit for the honest pleasure that was his recompense. They were satisfied ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... extended to the vermin. When the lamp was extinguished, the bed was alive. I always marvelled at the phrase, "he took up his bed and walked," but if the bugs had been unanimous, they could have walked off with the bed without a miracle. Sleeping was impossible. I relighted the paraffin lamp, a retreat was evidently sounded, and the enemy retired. Presently an explosion took place—the lamp had gone wrong, and burst, fortunately without setting the place on fire. An advance was sounded, and the enemy came on, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. The old window-curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn. The mahogany sideboard, the threadbare carpet, the small horsehair sofa, the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... of an ill-trimmed paraffin lamp smoking in a wall bracket, desperate faces, yellow and brown and white, consulted one another with rolling eyeballs and strange tongues clamorous. Sofia heard the broken rustling of heavy respirations; ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... true. Under the rays of a paraffin lamp, in face of the kneeling congregation, sat Squire Moyle; his body stiffly upright on the bench, his jaws rigid, his eyes with horror in them fastened upon the very window through which Honoria peered—fastened, it seemed to her, upon her face. But, no; he saw nothing. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... exact method that you ought to pursue," said Meldon, "I don't lay down any hard and fast rules; but I should suggest that paraffin oil is a thing that has a most penetrating kind of taste, and I don't know that I ever met any one who liked it. I remember once a servant we had at home cleaned the inside of the coffee-pot with paraffin oil. I tasted the stuff for weeks afterwards, and I couldn't ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... stifling, and as she came out of the last foul dwelling she welcomed as a relief even the vitiated air of the hot night. She went back into the passageway of the house, and by the light of a paraffin lamp made her last entry in the little diary ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... the pot, ma'am," said Aunt M'riar, looking into it to see, near the paraffin lamp which smelt: they all did in those days. But Mrs. Burr had had three; and three does, mostly. If these excellent women's little inflections of speech, introduced thus casually, are puzzling, please supply inverted commas. Aunt ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... stripes, while the furniture consisted of a cheap little walnut sideboard, upon which stood a photograph in a frame, a decanter, a china sugar-bowl, and some plates, while near it was a painted, movable cupboard on which stood a paraffin lamp with green cardboard shade, and a small fancy timepiece, which was out of ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... down from the top of the brick stove a cheap tin paraffin lamp, which he handed to the starosta. By the light of this Paul came again into the hut. The floor was filthy, as may be imagined, for beasts and ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... effect of the aldehyde group has the average value 64.88 calories, i.e. considerably greater than the alcohol group. The ketone group corresponds to a thermal effect of 53.52 calories. It is remarkable that the difference in the heats of formation of ketones and the paraffin containing one carbon atom less is 67.94 calories, which is the heat of formation of carbon monoxide at constant volume. It follows therefore that two hydrocarbon radicals are bound to the carbon monoxide residue with the same strength as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various



Words linked to "Paraffin" :   paraffin scale, heptane, amine, hexane, alkane series, ethane, alkane, aliphatic compound, methane, lamp oil, coal oil, C2H6, kerosine, butane, kerosene, aminoalkane, wax



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