collier
/ˈkɒlɪə
/noun chiefly British
1A coal miner.Consider also the colliers and pitmen and coal merchants and coal trains and the men who drive them and the ships that carry coals - what an army of servants do the machines thus employ!...
- Once the country's leading coal producer, in 1860 its colliers accounted for just 2.4 percent of the national total.
- In 1701 a statute declared that habeas corpus did not apply to the miners and in 1708 it was enacted that a collier escaping could be brought back within eight years.
2A ship carrying coal.It is an unusual design of ship, a collier with engine-room aft and wheelhouse amidships....
- The slipway would have been used to take small boats from the house to the colliers - coal ships - moored in the upper harbour.
- The U.S. armada at Culebra was swelled by a flotilla of support vessels, including colliers and torpedo boats.
Origin
Middle English: from coal + -ier. The original sense was 'maker of charcoal', who usually brought it to market, hence 'person selling charcoal', later 'person selling coal', whence the current senses.