Corfs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Large wicker baskets used for hauling coal out of mines or carrying fish from the water
2. Woven baskets, often of willow, used by miners and fishermen to transport coal or catch
3. Wicker hampers historically employed to carry coal underground or haul fish to shore

Etymology: "Corfs" is simply the plural of "corf", so the history belongs to the singular. "Corf" entered Middle English from Middle Low German "korf" or Middle Dutch "korf", both meaning a basket. Those Low German and Dutch forms trace back to a Proto-West Germanic root "*korb", the ancestor of the modern English word "basket"'s close relatives in neighbouring Germanic languages. The word for a basket was once one of the most ordinary objects in daily life, which is why the Germanic languages kept it so widely. "Corf" in English came to mean a large basket used for carrying and hauling, especially in mining, where a corf was a basket or cage used to raise coal and ore up a shaft.