Sc. Also 6–7 -heuch(e, 8 -hugh. [f. COAL + HEUGH.] A coal-pit: perh. originally one open to the surface or excavated in the side of a slope or bank.
1592. Sc. Acts, 12 Jas. VI. (1597), § 146. The wicked crime of setting of fire in Coal-heuches.
1653. R. Baillie, Dissuasive Vind. (1655), 21. This, to me, was but to move from one errour to another, from the lime-pit to the coal-heugh.
1708. J. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., II. III. v. (1743), 412. Firing Colehughs.
1725. Strachey, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 397. They land it (as at many Coalhews in the Country) on Girls Backs.
1822. Scott, Pirate, v. Wherefore should not a coal-heugh be found out in Zetland as well as in Fife?
1879. H. George, Progr. & Pov., IX. iv. (1881), 422. Had Dr. Adam Smith been born in the coal-hews.
