How do you use the word "coal" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "coal": A crow is as black as coal. We have used our ration of coal for the week.

Coal Meaning

/kəʊl/

Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounA black or brownish black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel.

nounA black or brownish black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel., A type of coal, such as bituminous, anthracite, or lignite, and grades and varieties thereof, as a fuel commodity ready to buy and burn.

Sentence Examples

A crow is as black as coal.

We have used our ration of coal for the week.

I put more coal on the fire.

CEFR Practice Quiz

The miner carried a heavy sack of ____ from the dark tunnel.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

The workers spent the whole day mining ____ deep underground ton.

Word Origin & History

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.

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"Coal-eaters they may have been, but a more willing or harder working Atlantic engine was never designed." — 1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, pages 3, 5:

"Our next stopping-place was Newcastle, and here we coaled in earnest, for the steamer was flying light, and was loaded up in every available place." — 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 131:

"The light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an outward-bound steamer that was coaling." — 1890, Oscar Wilde, chapter XVI, in The Picture of Dorian Gray:

"N.W.R. four-cylinder 4-6-2 class "XS1," No. 761, coaling at Delhi junction. This class is the most powerful passenger engine in India." — 1949 November and December, Railway Magazine, page 371 (photo caption):

"After working the 1.30 p.m. through train from Forres to Aberdeen as far as Elgin, she returns tender first with a local passenger train and is then coaled and watered at Forres shed, and eventually works back to Perth on the 10.20 p.m. through freight." — 1944 January and February, W. McGowan Gradon, “Forres as a Railway Centre”, in Railway Magazine, page 23:

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