coal
/kəʊl
/noun [mass noun]
1A combustible black or dark brown rock consisting chiefly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground seams and used as fuel: two bags of coal [as modifier]: a coal fire...
- Thus, an industrially valuable coal seam requires special conditions to accumulate.
- Surface mining began in the United States in the late eighteenth century, when farmers and others dug coal from exposed coal seams on hillsides and stream banks.
- The breathing of coal and rock dust causes black lung, the common name given to the lung diseases pneumoconiosis and silicosis.
1.1 [count noun] British A piece of coal: men were loading coals into a wagon...
- The house was so named by its owner, whose granddaughter left the interest of her meagre savings of £50 to be spent on giving coals to the poor.
- They were seated at the long table, and serving men were heaping coals upon the fire, and carrying bronze ewers about.
- Abraham bade Yitsak carry the wood for the sacrifice, and he himself carried a knife and the coals for starting the fire.
1.2 [count noun] A red-hot piece of coal or other material in a fire: the glowing coals...
- Finally, his neck stiff from looking up, the Professor returned to studying the glowing coals of the fire.
- After crossing the smoking bed of glowing coals, the fire walkers put their feet into a small side pit filled with milk.
- A dying fire burned nearby, its coals still glowing crimson.
verb [with object]
1Provide with a supply of coal: (as noun coaling) the coaling and watering of the engine...
- After coupling to the coach, No. 823 was coaled manually and then had to reverse down the shed road to be oiled and greased for the return journey.
- It was shown in 1960 at Lambton shop track, with contractor's employee about to coal her up.
- Details range from swimming instruction for boy seaman recruits at HMS Ganges to how Naval vessels were coaled.
1.1 [no object] Mine or extract coal: we have now finished coaling at the site...
- Nowadays coaling mining is merely a distant faded memory in most minds and of course the young cannot remember anything of the industry that once dominated the area.
Phrases
coals to Newcastle
haul someone over the coals
Derivatives
coaly
/ adjective ...- This facies comprises interlaminated to interbedded, dark grey to black carbonaceous claystone and coaly stringers that often grade vertically and laterally into economically exploitable coal seams.
- If coaly or oily material is present in samples the DMSO may become very dark, but this does not appear to affect its effectiveness when re-used.
- A repeating sequence of fining-upward sediments commonly capped by coaly layers is indicative of fluvial sediments.
Origin
Old English col (in the senses 'glowing ember' and 'charred remnant'), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kool and German Kohle. The sense 'combustible mineral used as fuel' dates from Middle English.
The Old English word col meant ‘a glowing ember’ rather than the substance that burns. The expression haul over the coals is a metaphorical extension of what was once an all-too-real form of torture. Coal from Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England was abundant long before the Industrial Revolution, and to carry (or take) coals to Newcastle for something redundant has been an expression since the mid 17th century.