miningn.
/ˈmʌɪnɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈmaɪnɪŋ/ 1. The action of mine v.; (in early use) the process of digging a tunnel under a wall, fort, etc., so as to cause its collapse; (in later use chiefly) the science or industry of extracting metal, coal, etc., from a mine. Also in extended use.In later use frequently with distinguishing word prefixed (cf. mine n. 1). gold-, lead-, tin-mining; placer-, vein-mining; hydraulic mining, etc.: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > attack > action or state of siege or blockade > [noun] > mine(s) > construction of
miningc1330
sap1591
undermining1598
the world > action or operation > harm or detriment > [noun] > action > secretly
mining1645
undermining1904
sabotage1910
sabotaging1923
white-anting1930
monkeywrenching1983
society > occupation and work > industry > mining > [noun]
mineral?a1425
minery1561
mining1776
mine working1826
c1330 (?a1300) Arthour & Merlin (Auch.) (1973) 2429 (MED) Our king Vterpendragon Him asailed & ek his men Wiþ heweing & wiþ mineinge & wiþ mangunels casteinge.
a1450 ( tr. Vegetius De Re Militari (Douce) f. 35 (MED) Spades, schoueles, mattokis & pykoyses þat nediþ to dikynge of dyches and mynynge of wallus.
1523 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. ccli. 372 They coude nat geat it by no assaute, nor none other wayes at their ease, without it were by mynynge.
1579 T. North tr. Plutarch Liues 145 Nowe when his mining fell out according to his good hope, he gaue an assaulte to the walles.
1601 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Trauellers Breuiat 92 There are fower meanes to ruinate a fortresse, Ordinance, mining, fire and digging.
1645 J. Milton Tetrachordon 78 St. Paul having thus clear'd himselfe, not to goe about the mining of our christian liberty.
1776 A. Smith Inq. Wealth of Nations I. i. xi. 213 Mining..is considered..as a lottery. View more context for this quotation
a1788 R. Colvill Poet. Wks. (1789) ii. 256 To plead Excuse for perj'ry, for treason base, For every vice which gradual mining saps.
1839 C. Darwin in R. Fitzroy & C. Darwin Narr. Surv. Voy. H.M.S. Adventure & Beagle III. xiv. 317 It is now well known that the Chilian method of mining is the cheapest.
1869 R. B. Smyth Gold Fields Victoria 609 Dead-work, the opening up or preparatory work for mining by sinking shafts and winzes, driving levels and cross-cuts.
1891 Truth (Sydney) 3 May 3/4 So-called experts..know no more about mining than a pademelon does about astronomy.
1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 464/1 The development of mining and manufacturing was accompanied by economic distress among the farming classes.
1954 K. B. Cumberland Southwest Pacific ii. 42 In the central Pacific province the only mining is that of phosphate.
1982 Ecol. Monogr. 52 37/2 Moth damage, by larval mining in the flower heads, was highest at the coast.
2. An instance of this; a tunnelling or excavation; an excavated passage. Cf. mine n. 3a. Frequently figurative.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > attack > action or state of siege or blockade > [noun] > mine(s)
minea1450
undermine1524
minework1583
minery1591
mining1598
berry1608
1598 R. Barret Theorike & Pract. Mod. Warres v. 136 Pioners..to make trenches, Rampiers, Minings.
1647 J. Hall Poems 48 How did he loose their knots, how break their snares, How meet their minings, how pluck up their tares.
1744 J. Armstrong Art of preserving Health iii. 73 Fatal woes; a cough that foams with blood, Asthma, and feller Peripneumonie, Or the slow minings of the hectic fire.
a1794 S. Blamire Poet. Wks. (1842) 109 Haste, haste to where thy sympathy may ease The secret minings of a slow disease.
1816 W. Scott Antiquary I. xii. 264 They say that..he's run himsel out o' thought wi' his houkings and minings for lead and copper yonder.
1844 B. Disraeli Coningsby III. vi. ii. 22 He had no genius for the tactics of intrigue; your reconnoiterings, and marchings, and counter-marchings, sappings and minings, [etc.].
1978 Newsweek (Nexis) 8 May 52 The number of road minings, ambushes and raids on white farms..has jumped sharply.
1994 Newsday (Nexis) 25 Mar. a13 If the minings of a mole inside the CIA were as ‘devastating’ as Aspin tells us, are we to assume that at last we have the explanation of how the Soviets won the Cold War?
2000 Record (Bergen County, New Jersey) (Nexis) 22 June h5 Homeowners should look for..cracking bark that is soft underneath, sap bleeding, and sawdust-like insect minings.
3. Stock Market. In plural. Stocks or shares in a mining company.
ΘΚΠ
society > trade and finance > stocks and shares > stocks, shares, or bonds > [noun] > share > shares in specific country or industry
railway share1822
railroad shares1828
railway stock1836
railroads1848
Canada1868
coalers1878
Mets1886
industrial1887
golds1888
Kaffir1889
electrics1892
rails1893
Westralians1894
kangaroo1896
coppers1899
the junglea1901
electricals1901
Rhodesians1901
diamonds1905
Siberians1906
steels1912
utility1930
properties1964
engineer1976
mining1983
1983 Financial Times (Nexis) 9 Mar. 27 In minings Boliden declined SKr 5 to SKr 350.
1994 Mainichi Daily News (Japan) 2 Aug. 6/3 Paper/pulp shares were up 30.6 percent, textiles 28.3 percent, minings 28.1 percent, [etc.].
1997 Financial Mail (S. Afr.) (Nexis) 28 Nov. 65 By the weekend, industrial shares were at their lowest since last December and minings had touched a four-year low.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.† mining-piece n. Obsolete rare† mining-time n. Obsolete (time n. 35a).
mining accident n.
ΚΠ
1845 Littell's Living Age 13 Sept. 499/1 Prof. Faraday said, the subject of mining accidents had long occupied his attention.
1983 S. Kitzinger Woman's Experience of Sex x. 287 One whose lover died in a mining accident said that her next period was the most painful she had ever had in her life.
mining camp n.
ΚΠ
1859 Brit. Colonist (Victoria) 1 Jan. 2 On my return down I called at Foster's Bar, a very considerable mining camp, situated 8 miles below Rose's.
1966 ‘E. Lathen’ Death shall Overcome i. 9 Wall Street is power. The talk..closes mining camps in the Chibougamou.
mining captain n.
ΚΠ
1853 Harper's Mag. Mar. 442/2 We are accompanied by Captain John Cox, the mining captain.
1953 Amer. Q. 5 319 The other [mine]..was prematurely sold on the misrepresentation of a dishonest mining captain.
mining claim n.
ΚΠ
1852 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. July 103/2 No Chinaman was to be thenceforth allowed to hold any mining claim in the neighborhood.
1974 Audubon Sept. 43/1 The huge land grant began to disintegrate into a tangle of mining claims and farm tracts.
mining community n.
ΚΠ
1851 Internat. Mag. May 271/2 The mining communities..administer summary punishment wherever the offender is captured.
1992 TV Quick 19 Dec. (Central Region ed.) 69/5 He's a preacher whose scars betray a rather murky past, defending a mining community from a frontier conglomerate.
mining company n.
ΚΠ
1771 W. Small Let. 14 Feb. in J. P. Muirhead Origin & Progress Mech. Inventions J. Watt (1854) II. 15 Application was made to me, by a mining company in Derbyshire.
1816 W. Scott Antiquary II. ii. 32 Dousterswivel..was so nearly connected with his apprehended loss in the stock of the mining company, that he could not abide the sight of him.
1998 Guardian 18 Sept. 26/8 The pit remains were left with no known owner after the collapse of the original mining company.
mining country n.
ΚΠ
1828 N. Amer. Rev. Jan. 135 Guatemala..was an agricultural, not a mining country.
1990 Sphere (Sabena Airlines) July 30/1 In Belgium's most impoverished landscape, the bleak mining country of the Borinage.
mining disaster n.
ΚΠ
1867 Sci. Amer. 24 Aug. 118/3 One of the most deplorable mining disaster [sic] on record occurred last month in the neighborhood of Lugan, in Saxony.
2000 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (Nexis) 3 Aug. 4 a In communities where generations have slaved at the earth for coal, mining disasters are a hard fact of life.
mining district n.
ΚΠ
1821 N. Amer. Rev. Apr. 269 The mines at Freyburg in Saxony do nothing more than support the population of the cities and villages in the mining districts.
1970 Amer. Mineralogist 55 138 The location is Leveäniemi in the Svappavaara mining district, Norrbotten Province, Sweden.
mining engineer n.
ΚΠ
1844 Civil Engineer & Architect's Jrnl. 7 190/2 A model, showing the principal pump valves used by mining engineers.
1984 A. C. Duxbury & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans iii. 106 Plate tectonics is also studied with interest by mining engineers.
mining engineering n.
ΚΠ
1857 Sci. Amer. 29 Aug. 407/3 A thorough professional education in civil engineering, mining engineering,..metallurgy and architecture.
2000 Engin. & Mining Jrnl. (Electronic ed.) 1 Sept. She is a graduate in mining engineering.
mining lamp n.
ΚΠ
1816 M. Faraday Let. 8 Aug. in Corr. (2011) VI. 560 I afterwards mentioned it to Sir H. Davy because I considered it to depend on those very circumstances which ensure the safety of his mining lamp.
1893 Dublin Rev. July 652 The most perfect combination of mining-lamp and fire-damp indicator yet produced.
1995 South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) (Nexis) 18 Nov. 10 It is tourists who now don metal helmets and mining lamps for short ‘shifts’ for a glimpse of life in the good old bad old days.
mining man n.
ΚΠ
1857 W. Collins Dead Secret II. vi. iii. 267 I must..say one word also of a mining man, with the Cornish name of Polwheal.
1874 R. W. Raymond Statistics Mines & Mining 499 He talked over the scheme with many railroad and mining-men.
1991 E. Hoagland in Balancing Acts (1992) 62 I sat at the Sourdough Inn with..two mining men from Fairbanks.
mining operation n.
ΚΠ
1816 W. Scott Antiquary I. xiii. 292 Strange tales..of appearances of old shafts, and vestiges of mining operations, conducted in a manner quite different from those of modern times.
1984 A. C. Duxbury & A. Duxbury Introd. World's Oceans ii. 62 The largest of all superficial seafloor mining operations is for sand and gravel.
ΚΠ
1893 W. C. Hazlitt Coinage European Continent 216 Mining-pieces, money of two classes: (i) that coined for mines, and (ii) for the miners. The former are generally of silver, and often of large size and elaborate and artistic design... The latter are usually of copper and of low values.
mining population n.
ΚΠ
1845 B. Disraeli Sybil III. vi. ix. 245 Whenever the mining population is disturbed the disorder is obstinate.
1904 J. Conrad Nostromo i. vi. 44 The mining plant had been destroyed, the mining population had disappeared from the neighbourhood years and years ago.
1997 Independent on Sunday (Nexis) 14 Sept. (Travel section) 6 By the end of the 19th century so many of the Cornish mining population had migrated overseas that the population was dwindling.
mining recorder n.
ΚΠ
1872 ‘M. Twain’ Roughing It xxix. 210 Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up the following ‘notice’, preserving a copy to be entered upon the books in the mining recorder's office in the town.
1968 R. M. Patterson Finlay's River 29 F. H. Davis was the first man alert enough to stake the fraction and get in first to the mining recorder's office to file.
mining share n.
ΚΠ
1831 N. Amer. Rev. Apr. 320 The study of a London price current and the quotations of mining shares would be essentially instructive to any one afflicted with speculating propensities.
2000 Mirror (Electronic ed.) 9 Feb. Be warned—mining shares are notoriously volatile.
mining speculation n.
ΚΠ
1824 ‘R. Stuart’ Descr. Hist. Steam Engine 121 The failure of some of the great mining speculations.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 119 Chains, The, that portion of Simmonds Street, Johannesburg, which is closed to vehicular traffic, and reserved for the operations of stock and mining speculations.
mining statute n.
ΚΠ
1871 W. Drummond Let. 24 Nov. in Segregation Mineral & Agric. Lands (1872) 5 The 26th of July, 1866, the date of the passage of the mining statute.
1920 J. W. Thompson (title) Pennsylvania mining statutes annotated.
2000 Salt Lake Tribune (Nexis) 1 Oct. a1 Federal mining statures, some of which have been on the books for more than 100 years, were designed to encourage development.
mining stock n.
ΚΠ
1848 Sci. Amer. 22 Jan. 139/2 Mining stock rose faster than ever the South Sea, Mississippi or Eastern land shares.
1982 Esquire Aug. 76/2 Not one of my father's surefire penny mining stocks ever went into orbit.
ΚΠ
1882 Harper's Mag. May 897/1 The very clocks are set to ‘mining-time’, half an hour faster than sun time.
mining tool n.
ΚΠ
1555 R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde i. x. f. 49v All maner of dygginge or myninge tooles.
1872 ‘M. Twain’ Roughing It xxvii. 198 We put eighteen hundred pounds of provisions and mining tools in the wagon.
1989 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 4 June i. 66 The miner paid for rent, water, electricity... He even paid for the sharpening of his mining tools.
mining town n.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > district in relation to human occupation > town as opposed to country > town > [noun] > town with other industry or occupation
mill town1491
mining townc1827
lumber town1880
cow-town1885
company town1907
c1827 Dr. Willard in R. G. Thwaites Early Western Trav. (1905) XVIII. 359 The mining towns are mostly dependent on their supplies from abroad.
1981 B. Byars Cybil War 83 He was in Arizona in a deserted mining town.
mining township n.
ΚΠ
1873 J. C. F. Johnson Christmas on Carringa 3 Mullockville, as probably most of you are aware, is a mining township on the Sydney side.
1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 61/1 Farther up the valley are the mining townships of Nantygolo and Blaina.
1999 Independent (Nexis) 15 Sept. 6 Not all Zulus were linked to the IFP, a misconception that had led to the harassment and deaths of many Zulus in South Africa's mining townships.
mining village n.
ΚΠ
1829 Western Monthly Rev. 657 St. Bartolomeo and Guajaquilla..are mining villages.
1857 J. B. Armstrong in Harper's Mag. 3 Jan. 9/1 On the afternoon of the second day I arrived at Mormon Island, a mining village on the American River, and found many miners scattered along the stream.
1936 J. Buchan Island of Sheep ix. 174 A third road..ran through mining villages where there would be plenty of people about.
1999 Northern Echo (Electronic ed.) 4 Oct. A three-year dream of providing a new heart for a former mining village is on the brink of becoming a reality.
mining work n.
ΚΠ
1633 T. James Strange Voy. 69 Wee continued our myning worke.
1892 Econ. Jrnl. 2 577 The Coal Mines Act of 1886..limits certain kinds of mining work to eight hours a day.
1974 W. R. Hunt North of 53° iv. 15 Steam points replaced wood fires for thawing and this greatly speeded the mining work.
C2. † mining hole n. Obsolete rare a hole bored to receive a blasting charge in mining.
mining pan n. now chiefly historical = pan n.1 2c.
ΚΠ
1858 A. C. Edwards Let. 6 Nov. in Colorado Gold Rush (1941) 153 Bring your mining pans and buckets with you.
1978 Detroit Free Press 16 Apr. 6 b/1 A museum filled with early California memorabilia, from mining pans to historic railroad spikes.
mining geologist n. an expert in or student of mining geology.
ΚΠ
1871 N. Amer. Rev. July 209 That this statement would entirely accord with the views of all skilful and disinterested mining geologists we have no doubt.
1991 R. Goldring Fossils in Field vi. 127 The mining geologist locates ore bodies on a scientific basis, by mapping, prospecting and predicting where to recommend mining with a defined degree of confidence.
mining geology n. the branch of geology that deals with the formation, occurrence, and exploitation of mineral deposits.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > earth sciences > geology > mineralogy > [noun] > branches
metallostatics1665
mining geology1871
metallogeny1905
mineralography1916
mineragraphy1917
minerogenesis1917
petroleum geology1917
metallogenesis1923
1871 N. Amer. Rev. July 209 A matter which..opens questions for discussion in mining geology of the greatest practical and scientific importance.
1906 J. Park Text-bk. Mining Geol. i. 1 Economic or Mining Geology, which bears more directly on mining, and the development of the mining industry.
1983 W. C. Lacy Mining Geol. p. xi This volume is not intended as a substitute for texts covering mining geology but as supplementary reading.
ΚΠ
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 852 The ore..was attacked by a single man, who bored a mining hole.
mining ship n. (a) a ship used for minelaying (rare); (b) a ship used for the extraction of underwater mineral deposits.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > war vessel > [noun] > mine-layer
minelayer1886
miner1898
mining ship1905
1905 Westm. Gaz. 28 Jan. 2/2 If the Russians took mines out ten miles from the shore in a mining-ship and laid them there.
1975 Business Week (Nexis) 7 Apr. 26 Hughes was testing the world's first commercial-sized ocean mining ship designed to harvest the potato-sized nodules that sit below three miles of water.
1998 Mining Ann. Rev. Dec. 179 The Coral Sea was converted from a production vessel to a dual-purpose sampling and mining ship.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
miningadj.
/ˈmʌɪnɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈmaɪnɪŋ/ Chiefly poetic and figurative. That mines (in various senses of the verb).
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > harm or detriment > [adjective] > harmful or injurious > by gradual or secret means
mining1560
undermining1583
cankerous1599
pioning1609
cancerous1655
sapping1819
the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > order Lagomorpha (rabbits and hares) > [adjective] > like or characteristic of a rabbit > burrowing
mining1560
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > formation of features > erosion or weathering > [adjective] > cutting channel or hole
stream-cut1626
mining1816
incised1898
1560 Medit. Penitent Sinner sig. Aa7v, in A. L. tr. J. Calvin Serm. Songe Ezechias That thy Hierusalem..May be..bylded so that it may neuer fall By myning fraude or mighty violence.
1565 T. Norton & T. Sackville Gorboduc i. sig. B2v That mynyng fraude shall finde no way to crepe Into their fensed eares with graue aduise.
1624 F. Quarles Job Militant xiii, in Divine Poems (1632) 230 I know your mining thoughts; You will demand, Where is the wickeds power?
a1639 H. Wotton Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (1651) 526 The mining Conies shroud in rockie Cels.
1753 E. Young Brothers iii. 43 Rectitude's the Soul of Majesty: If mining Minions sap that Rectitude, The King may live, but Majesty expires.
1800 A. Bannerman Poems 77 The watch-man sits..As burst the thunders on his rocking tower, And at its foot the mining ocean raves.
1816 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto III xciv. 52 The..Rhone..whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more.
1842 J. C. Loudon Suburban Horticulturist v. 114 In the case of the larvæ of mining insects, in which the larva is concealed within the epidermis of the leaf, there is no way of destroying them but by gathering the leaves, or crushing the insects between the finger and thumb.
1855 B. Taylor Poems Home & Travel 151 From the icy Cordilleras..leap the avalanches, By the hands of mining waters Loosened from their lofty hold.
1991 D. Wakoski Medea the Sorceress 20 This is the voice of desert creatures speaking, the sparkle of goldwater in their mining eyes.
Compounds
mining bee n. any of numerous solitary bees of the family Andrenidae and related families (now usually all placed in the family Apidae) which build long underground tunnels containing nest chambers.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > invertebrates > phylum Arthropoda > class Insecta > order Hymenoptera > [noun] > suborder Apocrita, Petiolata, or Heterophaga > group Aculeata (stinging) > superfamily Apoidea (bees) > member of family Andrenidae (mining-bee)
miner1817
mining bee1893
sweat-bee1894
1893 L. N. Badenoch Romance Insect World iii. 72 (caption) Profile view of nest of a Mining Bee (Andrena vicina).
1912 E. D. Sanderson & C. F. Jackson Elem. Entomol. xvii. 268 None of the short-tongued bees live in colonies, and many of them make their nests in the ground, which has given them the name of ‘mining bees’.
1988 National Trust Mag. Autumn 24/1 Rock types and their weathered forms influence present-day plant and animal life. Mining bees make their burrows in the raised-beach deposits at Prawle Point, South Devon.
mining moth n. rare any of various moths whose caterpillars are leaf miners.
ΚΠ
1842 J. C. Loudon Suburban Horticulturist v. 104 The mining-moth, which as a larva lies under the cuticle of the leaves, flutters in its winged state about the flowers and leaves.
1991 Redia 74 App. 237 Mining moths of the genus Phyllonorycter, cynipids and aphids and the guilds of their parasitoids were studied.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.c1330
adj.1560