1. A man who has to do with coal: † a. coal-miner; b. coal-seller; c. coal-porter or heaver.
1582. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1860), 91. Havinge consideracion, as well upon poore husbandmen … as upon colemen, and other poore of the parishe.
1707. Reflex. upon Ridicule, 266. The Mercer and the Coal-Man.
1810. Crabbe, Borough, xxiv. Of rent-day charges and of coalman’s bills.
1840. Thackeray, Catherine, viii. He carried on the business of … small-coalman.
2. A coal-ship or collier. nonce-use.
1881. Daily Tel., 28 Jan., 1/2. The immortal Captain Cook had served his time aboard a coalman.
