charcoaled

1. 1
   adjective

   Cooked over burning charcoal rather than by gas, oven, or other heat.

   The vendor served charcoaled corn brushed with butter and chili.

   Diners praised the charcoaled flavor that gas grills can never quite match.

   Similarchargrilled, grilled, barbecued

   Note

   A menu word that names the fuel, not the result. Stephen King's barbecue in The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet (1984) serves "charcoaled T-bones, rare": the meat has met the coals yet is barely cooked through. The adjective sits before its noun and does not grade, so nothing is more charcoaled than something else. It should not be read as burnt or blackened.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of charcoal.

   The artist charcoaled a rough portrait in just a few minutes.

   By noon the students had charcoaled detailed studies of the statue.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one spelling does double duty: they charcoaled the peppers, and the peppers had been charcoaled. The verb itself leads two lives, drawing with a charcoal stick and cooking over charcoal, and this form carries either one. Context does the sorting: a portrait was sketched, a pepper was grilled. Set before a noun, the participle settles into the "cooked over charcoal" adjective.

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