1.  Charcoal obtained from wood; with pl., a piece of this: = COAL sb. 4. arch. or Hist.

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1653.  [see COAL sb. 4].

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1727.  [Dorrington], Philip Quarll (1816), 14. In both … places appeared to have been fire made … by wood coals.

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1855.  Browning, Fra Lippo, 38. It’s not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal or the like?

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  2.  = LIGNITE.

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1799.  Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 348. Coal … is often … found under basalt:—Wood coal is sometimes found under both.

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1830.  Herschel, Study Nat. Phil., I. iii. (1851), 45. Thin seams … of fossil-wood and wood-coal.

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  Hence † Wood-coaler, -collier, a maker of or dealer in ‘wood-coal’ (sense 1): = COLLIER 1, 2.

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1600.  West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Rec. Ser. III.), 216. Robertus Scoorer nuper de Emley … wooddcollier.

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1659.  in Marshall, Edwinstow Reg. (1891), 32. Elizabeth Childe wood coallers wife.

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1708.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4447/4. Richard Badily, a Wood-Collier.

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