bbl

Plural: bbl, bbls

Noun

any of various units of capacity
Abbreviation of barrels and occasionally also of barrel (singular).
Volumes of crude oil pumped, stored, or sold (in bulk).
Abbreviation of barrels and occasionally also of barrel (singular).
Barrels (casks) transported or sold, or the volume that they represent.
Abbreviation of barrels and occasionally also of barrel (singular).
Venturis in carburetion.

Phrase

Alternative form of BBL.

Examples

1-bbl carburetor
4-bbl carburetor
5 bbls. flour
measured in 1000-bbl units
three 2-bbl carbs

Origin / Etymology

Often thought to be modified from bl for barrel (b⸺l), reflecting a way of abbreviating that was used especially in previous centuries (compare do for ditto), wherein a doubled letter indicated plural count, as also with p.=page but pp.=pages and l.=line but ll.=lines; this method was used not only in English but also in scholarly New Latin and other modern languages heavily affected thereby, such as with Spanish EE. UU. According to this idea, addition of the suffix -s, as sometimes seen (e.g., 5 bbls or 5 bbls.), would seem to have come from writers who left the unit abbreviation itself unanalyzed (unparsed), thus adding a venially redundant marker of plural, somewhat like with MPGs for miles per gallon.

Synonyms

barrel, V, v

Scrabble Score: 0

bbl: not valid in Scrabble (US) TWL Dictionary
bbl: not valid in Scrabble (MW) Merriam-Webster Dictionary
bbl: not valid in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 0

bbl: not valid in Words With Friends