bitumen

From Middle English bithumen, bitumen, from Latin bitūmen. Doublet of bitume.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪt.jʊ.mɪn/, /ˈbɪt͡ʃ.ʊ.mɪn/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈbɪt͡ʃ.ʊ.mɪn/, /ˈbɪt.jʊ.mɪn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bɪˈtumən/, /bɪˈtjumən/, /baɪˈtumən/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

bitumen (countable and uncountable, plural bitumina or bitumens)

1. A sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum, burning with a bright flame. It occurs as an abundant natural product in many places, as on the shores of the Dead and Caspian Seas. It is used in cements, in the construction of pavements, etc.; Mineral pitch.

   Synonym: Jew's pitch

   • 2014 August 24, Jeff Howell, “Home improvements: gravel paths and cutting heating bills [print version: Cold comfort in technology, 23 August 2014, p. P5]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Property)‎^[2]:

     You need to excavate and remove the topsoil, line the subsoil with a geotextile, then lay and compact hardcore. Follow this with a layer of compacted "hoggin" – compacted clay, gravel and sand. This is then sprayed with hot bitumen, and has a layer of pea shingle rolled into it.

2. (by extension) Any one of the natural hydrocarbons, including the hard, solid, brittle varieties called asphalt, the semisolid maltha and mineral tars, the oily petrolea, and even the light, volatile naphthas.
3. (Australia, colloquial) Roads sealed with bitumen, as opposed to dirt roads.
4. (Canada) Canadian deposits of extremely heavy crude oil.^[1]

• (mineral pitch): bitume (obsolete), Jew’s lime, Jew’s pitch, Jew’s slime, slime (all obsolete)

bitumen (third-person singular simple present bitumens, present participle bitumening, simple past and past participle bitumened)

1. To cover or fill with bitumen.

   Synonym: bituminize

   • 1926, Rudyard Kipling, “The Prophet and the Country”, in Debits and Credits, →OCLC, page 155:

     another star reflected itself in the glassy black of the bitumened road

   • 1937, Lady Ethel Stefana Drower, Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, Brill Archive, →LCCN, page 122:

     The Litlata community have now built a mandi set in a pleasant garden, and to ensure the cleanliness of their yardna have bricked and bitumened the pool into which the water flows

   • 1984, Dennis Hancock, Wheels of Progress: History of the Road Transport Industry in Western Australia, 1829-1983‎^[3], Access Press, →ISBN, page 145:

     Work is already under way to complete the bitumening of Western Australia's last unsurfaced stretch of Highway One, between Fitzroy Crossing and Hall's Creek.

   • 2013, Janice Cooper, Crossing the Divide: A History of Alpha and Jericho Districts, Boolarong Press, →ISBN, page 176:

     The development of water reticulation occurred in parallel with street work — forming, kerbing, channelling and bitumening.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

• asphalt

• “bitumen”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

From Middle Dutch bitume, from Latin bitūmen, which later influenced the spelling.

• IPA^(key): /ˌbiˈty.mə(n)/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bi‧tu‧men

bitumen n (plural bitumina)

1. bitumen, mineral pitch

   Synonyms: aardhars, aardpek, bergteer, jodenlijm

• beton

• “bitumen” in Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal – Officiële Spelling, Nederlandse Taalunie. [the official spelling word list for the Dutch language]

From Dutch bitumen, from Middle Dutch bitume, from Latin bitūmen.

• IPA^(key): [biˈtumɛn]
• Hyphenation: bi‧tu‧mèn
• Rhymes: -men, -en, -n

bitumèn (first-person possessive bitumenku, second-person possessive bitumenmu, third-person possessive bitumennya)

1. bitumen

• bitumén (Standard Malay)

• “bitumen” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

From *bitū +‎ -men, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷétu (“resin, gum”), borrowed from an Osco-Umbrian language, though there exists the possiblity of a Celtic borrowing (compare Latin betulla, which is a Celtic borrowing from the same ultimate origin), where the shift of *gʷ > *b is regular.^[1] The raising of the first vowel might come from the Osco-Umbrian variety, or have been developed in Latin, as occasionally happens after labials; compare firmus, vitulus.^[2] Cognate with Scottish Gaelic bìth (“resin, gum”), English cud, Sanskrit जतु (jatu, “lac, gum”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /biˈtuː.men/, [bɪˈt̪uːmɛn]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /biˈtu.men/, [biˈt̪uːmen]

bitūmen n (genitive bitūminis); third declension

1. mineral pitch, bitumen

Third-declension noun (neuter, imparisyllabic non-i-stem).

• bitūmineus
• bitūminō
• bitūminōsus

Reflexes of an assumed variant *bittūmen:

• Old Catalan: betum, bitum
  • Catalan: betum
    • →? Portuguese: betume
    • → Spanish: betún
  • → Old Spanish: betume
• Franco-Provençal: bèton, blèton, bleton
• Occitan: betum
• Old French: betun
  • French: béton (see there for further descendants)

Borrowings:

• → German: Bitumen
• → Hebrew: בִּיטוּמֵן
• → Italian: bitume
• → Middle English: bethyn; bithumen, bitumen
  • English: bitumen
• → Middle French: bitume
  • French: bitume
  • → English: bitume
• → Russian: би́тум m (bítum)
• → Yiddish: ביטומען (bitumen)

• Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1984) “betún”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critic Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume I (A–Ca), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 578
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “bitūmen”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 1: A–B, page 386
• “bitumen”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “bitumen”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• bitumen in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “bitumen”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

Learned borrowing from Latin bitūmen.

• IPA^(key): /biˈtu.mɛn/
• Rhymes: -umɛn
• Syllabification: bi‧tu‧men

bitumen m inan

1. bitumen, blacktop

   Synonyms: bitum, bitumin

• bitumen in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• bitumen in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from German Bitumen, from Latin bitumen.

• IPA^(key): /biˈtu.men/, /bi.tuˈmen/

bitumen n (uncountable)

1. bitumen

• bitumen in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language)

Learned borrowing from Latin bitūmen.

• IPA^(key): /biˈtumen/ [biˈt̪u.mẽn]
• Rhymes: -umen
• Syllabification: bi‧tu‧men

bitumen m (plural bitúmenes)

1. bitumen

   Synonym: betún

• “bitumen”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

bitumen n

1. bitumen

• asfalt
• petroleum

• bitumen in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• bitumen in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• bitumen in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)