Word Meanings - COAL - Book Publishers vocabulary database

A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile

Additional info about word: COAL

A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile matter. Note: This word is often used adjectively, or as the first part of self-explaining compounds; as, coal-black; coal formation; coal scuttle; coal ship. etc. Note: In England the plural coals is used, for the broken mineral coal burned in grates, etc.; as, to put coals on the fire. In the United States the singular in a collective sense is the customary usage; as, a hod of coal. Age of coal plants. See Age of Acrogens, under Acrogen. -- Anthracite or Glance coal. See Anthracite. -- Bituminous coal. See under Bituminous. -- Blind coal. See under Blind. -- Brown coal, or Lignite. See Lignite. -- Caking coal, a bituminous coal, which softens and becomes pasty or semi-viscid when heated. On increasing the heat, the volatile products are driven off, and a coherent, grayish black, cellular mass of coke is left. -- Cannel coal, a very compact bituminous coal, of fine texture and dull luster. See Cannel coal. -- Coal bed , a layer or stratum of mineral coal. -- Coal breaker, a structure including machines and machinery adapted for crushing, cleansing, and assorting coal. -- Coal field , a region in which deposits of coal occur. Such regions have often a basinlike structure, and are hence called coal basins. See Basin. -- Coal gas, a variety of carbureted hydrogen, procured from bituminous coal, used in lighting streets, houses, etc., and for cooking and heating. -- Coal heaver, a man employed in carrying coal, and esp. in putting it in, and discharging it from, ships. -- Coal measures. Strata of coal with the attendant rocks. A subdivision of the carboniferous formation, between the millstone grit below and the Permian formation above, and including nearly all the workable coal beds of the world. -- Coal oil, a general name for mineral oils; petroleum. -- Coal plant , one of the remains or impressions of plants found in the strata of the coal formation. -- Coal tar. See in the Vocabulary. -- To haul over the coals, to call to account; to scold or censure. -- Wood coal. See Lignite. (more info) Icel. kol, pl., Sw. kol, Dan. kul; cf. Skr. jval to burn. Cf. Kiln, 1. A thoroughly charred, and extinguished or still ignited, fragment from wood or other combustible substance; charcoal.

Related words: (words related to COAL)

• CARBON STEEL
  Steel deriving its qualities from carbon chiefly, without the presence of other alloying elements; --opposed to alloy steel.
• CARBONATATION
  The saturation of defecated beet juice with carbonic acid gas. Knight.
• EARTHLY-MINDED
  Having a mind devoted to earthly things; worldly-minded; -- opposed to spiritual-minded. -- Earth"ly-mind`ed*ness, n.
• SOLIDARE
  A small piece of money. Shak.
• EARTH FLAX
  A variety of asbestus. See Amianthus.
• BLACK LETTER
  The old English or Gothic letter, in which the Early English manuscripts were written, and the first English books were printed. It was conspicuous for its blackness. See Type.
• EARTHDIN
  An earthquake.
• BLACKEN
  Etym: 1. To make or render black. While the long funerals blacken all the way. Pope 2. To make dark; to darken; to cloud. "Blackened the whole heavens." South. 3. To defame; to sully, as reputation; to make infamous; as, vice blackens
• HEATHER
  Heath. Gorse and grass And heather, where his footsteps pass, The brighter seem. Longfellow. Heather bell , one of the pretty subglobose flowers of two European kinds of heather . (more info) Etym:
• CARBONIDE
  A carbide.
• BLACKWATER STATE
  Nebraska; -- a nickname alluding to the dark color of the water of its rivers, due to the presence of a black vegetable mold in the soil.
• CONSISTENTLY
  In a consistent manner.
• HEATHENISHNESS
  The state or quality of being heathenish. "The . . . heathenishness and profaneness of most playbooks." Prynne.
• BLACK FLAGS
  An organization composed originally of Chinese rebels that had been driven into Tonkin by the suppression of the Taiping rebellion, but later increased by bands of pirates and adventurers. It took a prominent part in fighting the French during their
• COMPACT
  1. Joined or held together; leagued; confederated. "Compact with her that's gone." Shak. A pipe of seven reeds, compact with wax together. Peacham. 2. Composed or made; -- with of. A wandering fire, Compact of unctuous vapor. Milton. 3. Closely
• COMPACTIBLE
  That may be compacted.
• CONSIST
  1. To stand firm; to be in a fixed or permanent state, as a body composed of parts in union or connection; to hold together; to be; to exist; to subsist; to be supported and maintained. He is before all things, and by him all things consist. Col.
• SOLIDUNGULA
  A tribe of ungulates which includes the horse, ass, and related species, constituting the family Equidæ.
• BLACK-JACK
  A name given by English miners to sphalerite, or zinc blende; - - called also false galena. See Blende. 2. Caramel or burnt sugar, used to color wines, spirits, ground coffee, etc. 3. A large leather vessel for beer, etc.
• EARTHSTAR
  A curious fungus of the genus Geaster, in which the outer coating splits into the shape of a star, and the inner one forms a ball containing the dustlike spores.
• UNSHEATHE
  To deprive of a sheath; to draw from the sheath or scabbard, as a sword. To unsheathe the sword, to make war.
• MONOCARBONIC
  Containing one carboxyl group; as, acetic acid is a monocarbonic acid.
• FRANKFORT BLACK
  . A black pigment used in copperplate printing, prepared by burning vine twigs, the lees of wine, etc. McElrath.
• HYDROCARBON
  A compound containing only hydrogen and carbon, as methane, benzene, etc.; also, by extension, any of their derivatives. Hydrocarbon burner, furnace, stove, a burner, furnace, or stove with which liquid fuel, as petroleum, is used.
• UNEARTHLY
  Not terrestrial; supernatural; preternatural; hence, weird; appalling; terrific; as, an unearthly sight or sound. -- Un*earth"li*ness, n.
• INCOMBUSTIBLE
  Not combustible; not capable of being burned, decomposed, or consumed by fire; uninflammable; as, asbestus is an incombustible substance; carbon dioxide is an incombustible gas. Incombustible cloth, a tissue of amianthus or asbestus; also, a fabric
• MAGNASE BLACK
  A black pigment which dries rapidly when mixed with oil, and is of intense body. Fairholt.
• SUBCARBONIFEROUS
  Of or pertaining to the lowest division of the Carboniferous formations underlying the proper coal measures. It was a marine formation characterized in general by beds of limestone. -- n.