bbl

Meaning

Noun

1. Abbreviation of barrel, as:
2. Abbreviation of barrel, as:
3. Abbreviation of barrel, as:

Phrase

Alternative form of BBL

Synonyms

barrel

cask

barrels

drum

🥁

keg

pail

tank

tub

metal drum

Barl. barrel

barrel bulk

bucket

🪣

bulk

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.