Definitions

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

  • noun An inclined or vertical shaft or passage between levels in a mine.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A curse or imprecation.
  • noun In mining, a vertical or inclined excavation which is like a shaft except that it does not rise to the surface.
  • noun A corrupt form of winch.

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

  • noun (Mining.) A small shaft sunk from one level to another, as for the purpose of ventilation.

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

  • noun A steep shaft in a mine which joins two levels.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of obsolete winds, probably from wind, apparatus for winding.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Alteration of winds, 1757, plural of wind.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word winze.

Examples

  • At other times the men lose hold of the ladders -- ` fall away 'from them, as they express it -- or stumble into a winze, which is a small shaft connecting level with level, in which latter case death is almost certain to ensue, many of the winzes being sixty feet deep.

    Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines 1859

  • At length the gallery came to an end, though from it a small "winze," or passage, barely wide enough to crawl through, led upward at a sharp angle.

    The Copper Princess A Story of Lake Superior Mines Kirk Munroe 1890

  • A water filled winze with log cribbing stands across from the adit within the stope.

    Information, Culture, Policy, Education: 2006

  • A water filled winze with log cribbing stands across from the adit within the stope.

    Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Spooky spaces underground: abandoned American iron mines 2006

  • The name 'Winzy' might suggest that the protagonist of this story is a comic character; but the Scottish word 'winze' means curse and is here used to emphasize the tragic curse of eternal life suffered by the Mortal Immortal.

    Note: "Winzy" 2002

  • The name 'Winzy' might suggest that the protagonist of this story is a comic character; but the Scottish word 'winze' means curse and is here used to emphasize the tragic curse of eternal life suffered by the Mortal Immortal.

    Charles E. Robinson's "Note to 'The Mortal Immortal'" 2002

  • She knew how the stones fell, how a slip-ping shelf of rock, an ill-guided pick, or a miner's spell might collapse the whole spindly arrangement of tunnel and winze and shortwall until the ground above them shuddered as the planet fell in on itself.

    The Dark Queen Williams, Michael, 1952 Dec. 17- 1994

  • He should enter the mine and follow the left drift until he came upon McIntyre in the winze.

    SEASONS OF GOLD STEF ANN HOLM 1992

  • Raising the flame to his smoke, he lit it, then flicked the match into the winze with a shrug.

    SEASONS OF GOLD STEF ANN HOLM 1992

  • Owing to the excellent showing of ore obtained on the 3,000 level by the Hale & Norcross Company, and to the continuation of the ore below that level (as shown by a winze sunk in the vein), the management determined to sink the shaft to the vertical depth of 3,200 ft.

    Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 Various

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "The shop, adjacent to the Palace, but divided from it by the breadth of a steep narrow street desperate as a winze, was opening early."

    - Lowry, Under the Volcano

    June 25, 2011

  • Our dreams are dug by elves and djinns

    With many a twist to shaft and winze -

    The infernal mines

    Of nocturnal minds

    That grub for gold mid this day’s sins.

    February 10, 2015