† 1. Drawing in carbon or crayon. Obs.
1651. G. Daniel, Eclog., Let. You may iudge Draughts sometimes in Cole-Works, to hit the Naturalitie of Lines Studied by finer Pencills.
2. A place where coal is worked or mined; a colliery. Usually pl. (Cf. ironworks.)
1665. D. Dudley, Metallum Martis (1854), 8. Often fals the cole works on Fire … flaming out of the Pits.
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4705/1. Owners of the Coal-Works.
1853. D. Landale, in Pharmac. Jrnl., XIII. 127. Manager of a coal-work.
So Coal-worker, a coal-miner. Coal-working, a place where coal is worked, a colliery.
1726. Lond. Gaz., No. 6438/2. William Clarke … a Coalworker.
1838. Penny Cycl., XI. 149/2. In the practical department of coal-working, geology can as yet render little aid, because the experience of the coal districts has never yet been turned into science.
1862. Ansted, Hungary & Transylv., 124 (L.). At last we reached the coal-workings, and a more deserted, melancholy-looking place for a mine I have never seen.
