Corves

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Small wheeled baskets or tubs once used to haul coal and ore along the tracks inside a mine
2. Wicker or metal containers that miners filled with coal and pulled through underground passages
3. Heavy baskets on wheels that were historically used to transport mined material out of pits

Etymology: "Corves" is the plural of "corf", a term for a wheeled basket or tub used to haul coal and ore in mines. The singular "corf" came into Middle English from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch "korf", meaning basket, and the two Germanic forms share an ancestor in the reconstructed Proto-West Germanic "*korb". That same root gave English "basket" through a separate route, so "corf" and "basket" are cousins that arrived by different paths.