The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gasoline engine \Gas"o*line en"gine\, or Gasolene engine \Gas"o*lene en"gine\ . (Mach.) A kind of internal-combustion engine; -- in British countries called usually petrol engine.
Wikipedia
A petrol engine (known as a gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine with spark-ignition, designed to run on petrol ( gasoline) and similar volatile fuels. The first practical petrol engine was built in 1876 in Germany by Nikolaus August Otto, although there had been earlier attempts by Étienne Lenoir, Siegfried Marcus, Julius Hock and George Brayton. The first petrol combustion engine (one cylinder, 121.6 cm displacement) was prototyped in 1882 in Italy by Enrico Bernardi. In most petrol engines, the fuel and air are usually pre-mixed before compression (although some modern petrol engines now use cylinder-direct petrol injection). The pre-mixing was formerly done in a carburetor, but now it is done by electronically controlled fuel injection, except in small engines where the cost/complication of electronics does not justify the added engine efficiency. The process differs from a diesel engine in the method of mixing the fuel and air, and in using spark plugs to initiate the combustion process. In a diesel engine, only air is compressed (and therefore heated), and the fuel is injected into very hot air at the end of the compression stroke, and self-ignites.
Usage examples of "petrol engine".
There was nothing there but a weather-beaten, gunwale-splintered launch, with, amidships, an unboxed petrol engine that seemed to be a solid block of rust.
There was too great a risk of the sound of a petrol engine bringing down hanging ice.
But perhaps the more significant difference was what this craft lacked: the noise of a petrol engine.
Most of the controls you have are to do with the petrol engine, transmission, and so forth.
Beside it there was a small petrol engine and it was this that was giving trouble.
The boatman throttled back the petrol engine, hove to and made fast, and the two saurs and four humans climbed off the boat.
Lothar had the headlights of the Land-Rover switched off, and he drove slowly for the four-cylinder petrol engine had a distinctive beat that his quarry would pick up at a distance if the vehicle was driven hard.
Hector switched on the old petrol engine and pump that provided their power supply, then checked the vat.
I was startled by the sudden noisy throb of an engine close by and found a small pump run by a petrol engine which had apparently come into operation automatically.