coal
Pluralcoals (some meanings)
Pluralcoals (some meanings)
- 1A hard black or dark brown rock made mostly of carbon from ancient plants, dug from the ground and burned as fuel; also a particular type of it, such as anthracite.
Miners worked deep underground to bring up coal for the city's furnaces.
The region's economy depended for decades on coal pulled from local seams.
UsageFor the fuel in general, no a: burn coal, mine coal. One piece is a lump of coal.
Note
The dominant modern sense, which grew out of older meanings of ember and charred wood. It compounds freely, too: O. S. Nock, writing in Railway Magazine in 1947, called hungry locomotives coal-eaters.
- 2An ember or cinder: a piece of coal, wood, or other solid fuel that is glowing or blackened by fire.
He nudged a stray coal back onto the grate with the poker.
Only a few coals were still glowing when she woke at dawn.
UsageOften plural with heat words: hot coals, glowing coals, the dying coals.
Note
Here coal names glowing or charred fuel, often what remains after the flames have gone: the bed of embers a campfire leaves, hot enough to toast marshmallows without burning them.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- A campfire's embers can toast marshmallows without burning them. mdc.mo.gov
- 3A single piece of the fuel rock, intended for burning.
The miner held up a shiny black coal from the cart to show the children.
She took two coals from the bucket and set them on the cold grate.
UsageSome coals treats the fuel as separate pieces; some coal treats it as a mass. Both are correct.
Less common meanings
- 4
- 5
- 6Money, especially coin or cash, in now-obsolete slang.
Note
Old slang for cash, now obsolete. A modern reader who meets coal on the tavern counter will picture fuel first. In period dialogue, though, a demand to see the coal before working is a demand for payment.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Coal historically meant money in slang. en.wiktionary.org
- In historical dialogue using this sense, asking to see the coal before working means asking for payment. cuny.manifoldapp.org
- 7Deep black in color, resembling coal.
Just entering the ballroom were a cat and a bird. The cat had black ears nestled in his coal hair and a purple mask over his violet eyes. He had a long ebony tail. 99 9.
2011, C. C. W. Henderson, Blue Heron and Pizzazz - 8The black, porous substance left when wood is burned slowly with little air; charcoal.
- 9To burn something into charcoal or to a black, charred state, or to become charcoal in this way.
Char-coal of roots, coaled into great pieces.
1622, Francis Bacon, Natural History - 10To mark or draw something with charcoal.
- 11Artillery shells or bombs that emit black smoke on impact.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English cole, from Old English col, tracing back through Proto-Germanic *kulą to the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵwelH- ("to burn, shine"). It is related to Dutch kool, German Kohle, and Swedish kol.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Coal descends from Middle English cole, from Old English col. en.wiktionary.org
- The ancestry includes Proto-Germanic *kulą. en.wiktionary.org
- Proto-Germanic *kulą derives ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵwelH-, meaning “to burn, shine”. en.wiktionary.org
- Coal is related to Dutch kool, German Kohle, and Swedish kol. en.wiktionary.org