mining
- 1The work of removing valuable solid materials, such as coal, metals, or gems, from the earth.
Mining has shaped the economy of these mountain regions for generations.
Decades of mining left the hillside scarred and unstable.
UsageOften after what is dug out: coal mining, gold mining; also before a noun, as in a mining town.
Similarextraction, excavation
- 2Any activity that extracts something of value from a source or works to undermine it.
The mining of social media data raised serious privacy concerns.
The novel owes much to the author's patient mining of court records from the 1800s.
UsageUsually followed by of or for: the mining of court records, mining for clues; also in compounds like data mining.
Similarharvesting, exploitation, undermining
Note
Two figurative directions meet here: digging something out, and digging beneath something until it gives way. The undermining side can even be plural: the slow minings of regret and vexation.
- 3The creation of new cryptocurrency units by validating transactions and proving computational work.
Cryptocurrency mining has driven up demand for powerful graphics cards.
The firm moved its bitcoin mining to a region with cheap electricity, since its computers ran day and night.
UsageUsually after a word for the currency: bitcoin mining, crypto mining.
Note
The newest stretch of the old metaphor: as with digging out gold, new value is won only by spending effort. Here the effort is computational proof of work. It is often discussed as an industry with locations and rankings. In 2022, Kazakhstan was reported as the world's second-largest center for bitcoin mining after the United States.
- 4Present participle of mine, used as a verb for the action under way (they are mining coal; mining the harbor), not as a noun naming the activity.
Workers are mining the new seam around the clock.
The company has been mining gold in the region for decades.
UsageAs a verb it takes its object directly: mining coal, while the noun uses of: the mining of coal.
Less common meaning
- 5The activity of laying explosive devices, known as mines, across land or water to damage enemy forces.
The mining of shipping lanes became a central naval tactic in the conflict.
Coastal mining slowed the invasion fleet for several days.
UsageOften the mining of a place: the mining of a harbor or shipping lanes.
Note
In military use the mine is something laid in place, not something dug out of the ground. The noun names the act of sowing the mines, so a ship is struck by a mine, not by mining. A phrase like the mining of the coast could equally mean digging out minerals, so the surrounding context must make the meaning clear.
Showing meanings only.
mining is a form of mine
mine, verb: To dig into the earth to find and take out coal, ore, or other minerals. Full entry
- Spelling
- mine → mining: drop the e, add -ing
Practice
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