Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In coal-mining, a short, narrow opening made to connect the main workings with the air-head or ventilating drift: used in the working of the Dudley thick seam, in the South Staffordshire (England) coalfield.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a means of escape
  • noun a place of escape or secret refuge

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a hole through which an animal may bolt when pursued into its burrow or den

Etymologies

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Examples

  • So passive defences in the bolt-hole (doors that stay shut and solid with repeated zombie-bashing, windows they cannot climb through etc) backed up with active force (shotguns, chainsaws, improvised explodey goodness) would sooner or later become a priority.

    Cheeseburger Gothic » Prepping for Pucka. 2010

  • I need to re-charge with time in a quiet, nonthreatening and pleasant environment; namely my home (for home read my lovely bedroom bolt-hole).

    2010 April « I'm Not Broken 2010

  • I need to re-charge with time in a quiet, nonthreatening and pleasant environment; namely my home (for home read my lovely bedroom bolt-hole).

    Sometimes you get what you need… « I'm Not Broken 2010

  • Radio 2's answer to the Milibrothers, Radcliffe and Maconie, broke out of their Mancunian bolt-hole this week and went walking along England's Jurassic Coast.

    Rewind radio: Today; Bringing Up Britain; Radcliffe and Maconie; Front Row Miranda Sawyer 2010

  • Although he spends a lot of time in Hollywood, near Freddie Roach's Wild Card gym, Bolton remains his bolt-hole.

    Fighting comes first for Amir Khan, and his fiancee understands that 2011

  • "If yo 'so downright timid -" But I was already on the table, throwing back the trap, and sure enough it opened into a great musty loft which must have extended over the whole building, dim and cluttered with rubbish, just the bolt-hole for a deserving poltroon.

    THE NUMBERS 2010

  • I thought you were a goner, but Mamselle put a few stitches in you from the first-aid kit, and after dark we brought you down here to our bolt-hole.

    Watershed 2010

  • Splendid bolt-hole, too, for clandestine plotters like the Holnup.

    Watershed 2010

  • Hampton watched all these goings on from his bolt-hole in the family garden 10 feet above the road.

    Christopher Hampton: My Egyptian paradise 2010

  • Resourceful lass, too, finding me a bolt-hole - and loyal,. the way she'd answered back those ruffians who'd been threatening her.

    THE NUMBERS 2010

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