Colliering

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The work of extracting coal from underground deposits or the business of operating a coal mine
2. Employment in or management of coal mining, including the extraction and processing of coal from the earth
3. The practice or industry of digging out and producing coal as a commercial enterprise

Etymology: Colliering is the work of a collier, and that work has two sides. A collier is either a man who digs coal from the ground or a ship that carries coal, and the activity covers both the pit and the sea voyage. The trade has long been tied to the coastal coal routes of northern Europe, where colliers ferried coal from mining districts to towns and cities. The root is "col," the Old English word for coal, which is also the source of modern "coal." The ending "-ier" is an agent suffix, borrowed through Old French from the Latin "-arius," that marks a person or thing connected with a trade. So a collier is literally a coal-worker, and colliering is the business of coal-work. The suffix "-ing" turns the noun into a gerund, naming the activity itself.