Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A coal mine together with its physical plant and outbuildings.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place where coal is dug; a coal-mine or -pit, with the requisite apparatus for working it.
  • noun The coal-trade.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The place where coal is dug; a coal mine, and the buildings, etc., belonging to it.
  • noun obsolete The coal trade.

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

  • noun UK An underground coal mine, together with its surface buildings.
  • noun US A facility that supplies coal.

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

  • noun a workplace consisting of a coal mine plus all the buildings and equipment connected with it

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From collier +‎ -y.

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Examples

  • Clive Brill, the director, has had a good idea for the soundscape which doesn't quite work: the Volsci are Yorkshiremen, and the incidental music is therefore all in colliery brass band style.

    April Books 3) From One To Zero: A Universal History of Numbers, by Georges Ifrah nickbarnes 2009

  • Brass bands known as colliery bands were the local entertainment for the coal miners of Durham in Northern England, where the collieries mining operations are now defunct.

    NYT > Home Page By JON PARELES 2012

  • Eventually the officers of the colliery, which is owned by the AngloAmerican Corp. of South Africa, decided to clear the shaft by pumping air in to push the fumes deeper into the mine; the decision permitted the rescue effort to begin but inevitably reduced the chance of finding anyone alive.

    TIME.com: Top Stories 2011

  • Hope fades, anger grows at New Zealand mine Updated 107 minutes ago 11/22/2010 9:58:28 AM +00:00 Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2010

  • Hope fades, anger grows at New Zealand mine Updated 30 minutes ago 11/22/2010 9:58:28 AM +00:00 Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2010

  • GREYMOUTH, New Zealand Reuters - Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases and relatives praying for a miracle.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • Hope fades, anger grows at New Zealand mine Updated 30 minutes ago 11/22/2010 9:58:28 AM +00:00 Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2010

  • GREYMOUTH, New Zealand - Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases and relatives praying for a miracle.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2010

  • GREYMOUTH, New Zealand Reuters - Efforts to rescue 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine stalled for a third day on Monday, with authorities fearing the colliery is a powder keg of explosive gases and relatives praying for a miracle.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2010

  • Maybe Peter Lazenby would like to write about many of the symbols such as colliery wheels and factory gates that got melted down when our means of employment and cultural heritage was destroyed, particulary those that represent genuine hardship suffering and sacrifice of our own people.

    The Guardian World News 2009

Comments

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  • In the United States, United Kingdom, and South Africa, a coal mine and its accompanying structures are collectively known as a colliery.

    Colliery tailings : slag

    August 9, 2009

  • From "Haile Selassie Funeral Train" by Guy Davenport.

    January 19, 2010