fuel

[ˈfjuwəɫ]noun, verb

fuel is a noun meaning “Substance consumed to provide energy through combustion, or through chemical or nuclear reaction” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-U-E-L and has 2 syllables, and it appears 52 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fuel is fuels.

What does fuel mean?

noun

1
Substance consumed to provide energy through combustion, or through chemical or nuclear reaction.
2
Substance that provides nourishment for a living organism; food.
3
Something that stimulates, encourages or maintains an action.
His books were fuel for the revolution.

verb

1
To provide with fuel.
2
To exacerbate, to cause to grow or become greater.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce fuel?

/ˈfjuːəl/
/ˈfjuːl/
US [ˈfjuwəɫ]

Fuel has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-fuel.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of fuel

fuels plural, present, singular, he/she/it
fueling US, participle, present
fuelling UK, participle, present
fueled US, participle, past
fuelled UK, participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is fuel?

Fuel appears 52 times per million words in written English, the 1,941st most frequent word form in the list.

fuel0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Fuel in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	carburant, combustible (substance consumed to provide energy), alimenter, attiser (to exacerbate, to cause to grow or become…)
German	Brennstoff, Treibstoff (substance consumed to provide energy), anheizen, schüren (to exacerbate, to cause to grow or become…), betanken (to provide with fuel)
Portuguese	combustível (substance consumed to provide energy), atiçar, incitar (to exacerbate, to cause to grow or become…), abastecer (to provide with fuel)
Spanish	combustible, lumbre (substance consumed to provide energy), abastecer, repostar (to provide with fuel)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does fuel come from?

From Middle English fuayle, from Old French fouaille, feuaille (“firewood, kindling”), from feu (“fire”), from Late Latin focus (“fire”), from Latin focus (“hearth”), whence English focus. Cognate with Spanish fuego (“fire”), and Portuguese fogo (“fire”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).