This page gathers the 508 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Mining”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 5 of 5: from “spend” to “wring”.
- spend verb To break ground; to continue working.
- spill noun One of the thick laths or poles driven horizontally ahead of the main timbering in advancing a level in loose ground.
- spire noun A tube or fuse for communicating fire to the charge in blasting.
- splint noun Synonym of splent coal.
- spur noun A branch of a vein.
- spurn noun A body of coal left to sustain an overhanging mass.
- squat noun A small vein of ore.
- squeeze noun The gradual closing of workings by the weight of the overlying strata.
- squib noun A kind of slow match or safety fuse.
- stall noun The space left by excavation between pillars.
- stallman noun A subcontractor in charge of a stall or working place.
- standage noun A reservoir of water accumulated at the bottom of a mine.
- stank verb To seal off an area of the mine in which a fire has started.
- staple noun A shaft, smaller and shorter than the principal one, joining different levels.
- station noun An enlargement in a shaft or galley, used as a landing, or passing place, or for the accommodation of a pump, tank, etc.
- staunch noun Synonym of afterdamp (“suffocating gases present in a coal mine after an explosion caused by firedamp”).
- steam shovel noun An excavating machine designed to effect a shovelling action through steam power.
- stockpile noun A pile of coal or ore heaped up on the ground after it has been mined.
- stockwork noun A system of working in ore, etc., when it lies not in strata or veins, but in solid masses, so as to be worked in chambers or stories.
- stope verb To excavate in the form of stopes.
- stoping noun The removal of the desired ore from an underground mine, leaving behind an open space known as a stope.
- stopping noun A partition or door to direct or prevent a current of air.
- stowing noun A method of working in which the waste is packed into the space formed by excavating the vein.
- straddle noun A vertical mine-timber supporting a set.
- streamer noun One who searches for stream tin.
- strike a lead verb To find a vein of ore.
- string noun A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.
- strip noun A trough for washing ore.
- studdle noun A prop supporting a platform in a mine.
- stull noun A framework of timber covered with boards to support rubbish or to protect miners from falling stones.
- sturt noun A bargain in tribute mining by which the tributor profits.
- surfaceman noun A miner who works in the open air, rather than underground.
- swad noun A thin layer of refuse at the bottom of a seam.
- swallet noun Water breaking in upon the miners at their work.
- swelly noun An abnormal local thickening of a seam of coal.
- tail noun A tailing.
- tailgate noun A tunnel for drawing spent air away from the working face of a mine.
- tailings noun The waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; the waste from coal mining.
- tails noun Tailings; waste.
- thill noun The shallow stratum of underclay that lies under a seam of coal; the bottom of a coal-seam.
- thirl verb To drill or bore; to cut through, as a partition between one working and another.
- thirling noun In lead-mining, a mark indicating the termination of a set or pitch
- thrum noun A shove out of place; a small displacement or fault along a seam.
- thump noun Synonym of bump (“sudden movement of underground strata”).
- ticketing noun A periodic sale of ore in the mining districts, in which buyers wrote their bids upon tickets.
- tide noun The period of twelve hours.
- tights noun In blasting rock, a piece of unbroken rock within the pay limit of a blast.
- timberman noun A person who installs timbers in a mine.
- tippler noun One who works at a tipple.
- token noun A bit of leather having a peculiar mark designating a particular miner. Each hewer sent one of these with each corf or tub he had hewn.
- tossing noun The process of washing ores by violent agitation in water, in order to separate the lighter or earthy particles; tozing.
- trackhoe noun An excavator (machine) mounted on caterpillar tracks. (Most are large; some are miniature for small jobs.)
- trade noun Refuse or rubbish from a mine.
- train verb To trace (a lode or any mineral appearance) to its head.
- trap verb To attend to and open and close a (trap-)door.
- trapdoor noun A door in a level for regulating the ventilating current; a weather door.
- trapper noun A worker (usually a child) who opens and shuts a door in a gallery or level of a mine, to manage ventilation and access.
- trepan verb To create a large hole by making a narrow groove outlining the shape of the hole and then removing the plug of material remaining by less…
- tribute noun A certain proportion of the mined ore, or of its value, given to the miner as payment.
- tributer noun A miner who is paid in a certain portion of the ore, or its value.
- trimmer noun A device for storing coal in gradually increasing piles made by building up at the point of the cone or top of the prism.
- trommel noun A revolving buddle or sieve for separating, or sizing, ores.
- trouble noun A fault or interruption in a stratum.
- trumpeting noun A channel cut behind the brick lining of a shaft.
- trunk verb To extract (ores) from the slimes in which they are contained, by means of a trunk.
- tub noun A box or bucket in which coal or ore is sent up a shaft.
- tubbing noun A lining of timber or metal around a mineshaft, which is watertight, used to safely penetrate quicksand, water, etc. It can be made of…
- tug noun An iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed.
- tunnel noun A level passage driven across the measures, or at right angles to veins which it is desired to reach; distinguished from the drift, or…
- turnsheet noun A metal plate set down as a surface for the purpose of turning minecarts around.
- tut-work noun Work done by the piece, as in non-metalliferous rock, the amount done being usually reckoned by the fathom.
- twitch noun The sudden narrowing almost to nothing of a vein of ore.
- tye noun A trough for washing ores.
- tying noun The act or process of washing ores in a buddle.
- underburdened adj Having too powerful an explosive for the amount of rock broken up, resulting in a risk of igniting dust and gasses.
- undercast noun An air-passage crossing a road in a mine by means of an airtight box or channel beneath it.
- undercutter noun A device for cutting into rock walls from below.
- underhand verb To excavate downward in successive steps or horizontal slices while positioned above on unbroken ore.
- underhole verb To cut away or mine out the lower portion of a coal seam or a part of the underlay so as to win or get the overlying coal.
- underlay verb To incline from the vertical.
- underlayer noun A perpendicular shaft sunk to cut the lode at any required depth.
- underlie verb To underlay.
- upcast noun The ventilating shaft of a mine out of which the air passes after having circulated through the mine.
- van noun A shovel used in cleansing ore.
- viewer noun The manager of a colliery, who directs its workings and ventilation.
- wagoner noun One who transports the mined material away from the face in wagons.
- wailer noun A boy employed to pick out stones, pyrites, etc. remaining in the coal after it is screened.
- wall noun Any of the surfaces of rock enclosing the lode.
- want noun A depression in coal strata, hollowed out before the subsequent deposition took place.
- warrant noun Underclay in a coal mine.
- wash verb To separate valuable material (such as gold) from worthless material by the action of flowing water.
- washout noun A place in a mine where ore has been washed away by a flow of water.
- wasteman noun A person employed to examine the state of the mine workings, to check that they are properly ventilated, and sometimes to build pillars to…
- water ring noun A trench catching seepage.
- weighboard noun Alternative form of wayboard.
- wheal noun A mine.
- whim noun A large capstan or vertical drum turned by horse power or steam power, for raising ore or water, etc., from mines, or for other purposes.
- whimsy noun A whim (capstan or vertical drum).
- whole adj As yet unworked.
- wicket noun The space between the pillars, in post-and-stall working.
- win verb To extract (ore, coal, etc.).
- winder noun An engine that raises and lowers the cages in a mine.
- windway noun A wind road; a ventilation route in a mine.
- winning noun A new opening.
- winze noun A steep shaft for such purposes as: to join two levels in a mine; or to explore greater depths when considering whether to open a new…
- work noun Ore before it is dressed.
- work out verb To remove all the mineral that can be profitably exploited.
- wring verb Of a lode: to be depleted of ore; to peter or peter out.