# coal

Pronunciation: say "KOHL" US /koʊl/, UK /kəʊl/

## Noun

1. A 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.
   - Simple: A hard black rock from the ground that is burned to make heat or power.
   - _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._
2. An ember or cinder: a piece of coal, wood, or other solid fuel that is glowing or blackened by fire.
   - Simple: A small piece of wood, coal, or other fuel that is glowing or blackened from a 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._
3. A single piece of the fuel rock, intended for burning.
   - Simple: A single lump of the fuel rock meant to be burned.
   - _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._
4. Low-quality content, such as poor posts, videos, or other media. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Media or posts that are very low in quality.
   - _Half the feed today is coal, and I'm about to close the app._
   - _Fans complained that the long-awaited sequel was complete coal._

## Verb

5. To supply a ship, engine, or furnace with coal, or of a ship or engine, to take on coal.
   - Simple: To fill a ship or engine with coal, or to take coal on.
   - _Dockhands coaled the freighter through the night so it could sail at dawn._
   - _They had to coal the engine twice on the long mountain run._

## Noun

6. Money, especially coin or cash, in now-obsolete slang. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Money, in old slang.

## Other meanings

- (adjective) Deep black in color, resembling coal.
- (noun) The black, porous substance left when wood is burned slowly with little air; charcoal.
- (verb) To burn something into charcoal or to a black, charred state, or to become charcoal in this way.
- (verb) To mark or draw something with charcoal.
- (noun) Artillery shells or bombs that emit black smoke on impact.

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/coal (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).