Link Centre Dictionary

coal

UK/kəʊl/ US/kʰɒʊɫ/ common slang
noun (2) verb (3)

noun

1.

fossil fuel consisting of carbonized vegetable matter deposited in the Carboniferous period

2.

a hot glowing or smouldering fragment of wood or coal left from a fire

Synonyms

verb

1.

burn to charcoal

  • “Without a drenching rain, the forest fire will char everything”
Synonyms
2.

supply with coal

3.

take in coal

  • “The big ship coaled”

Origin

From Middle English col, from Old English col, from Proto-West Germanic *kol, from Proto-Germanic *kulą (“coal”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵwelH- (“to burn, shine”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian kööl (“coal”), Saterland Frisian Koole (“coal”), West Frisian koal (“coal”), Cimbrian kholl (“coal”), Dutch kool (“coal; carbon”), German Kohle (“coal”), Limburgish Kǫe̩l (“coal”), Luxembourgish Kuel (“coal”), Vilamovian köła (“coal”), Yiddish קויל (koyl, “coal”), Danish kul (“coal”), Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish kol (“coal; carbon”), Jamtish kuł (“coal; carbon”), Norwegian Bokmål kol, kull (“coal”). Compare Irish and Scottish Gaelic gual (“coal”), Manx geayl (“coal”), Lithuanian žvi̇̀lti (“to glow, twinkle”), Persian زکال (zakâl), زکار (zekâr), زغال (zoġâl, “coal”), Tocharian B śoliye (“hearth”), Sanskrit ज्वल् (jval, “to burn, glow”), all from the same root.

Phrases

  • at the coal face
  • barley coal
  • beehive coal
  • bituminous coal
  • black as coal
  • black coal
  • blind coal
  • block coal

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.