Noun

1. Any of a group of three isomeric aromatic hydrocarbons, di-methyl-benzene, found in coal and wood tar.
   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 262:

     [...] proceeding, desperately, from such opiated catarrh preparations as Collis Brown's Mixture on to cocainized brain tonics, cigarettes soaked in absinthe, xylene in unventilated rooms, and so on [...].