collier

noun

1. 1

   A person in the business or occupation of producing or distributing coal (any of several types of carbon fuel). A person who produces (e.g., digs, mines, gathers) or sells coal (the fossil fuel type), or transports it from underground, from the soil, or from a seashore.

   The Black Dwarfs wear black jackets and caps, are not handsome like the others, but on the contrary are horridly ugly, with weeping eyes, like blacksmiths and colliers.

   Near-synonyms: coalminer, coalworker; coalowner, mineowner

2. 2

   datedA person in the business or occupation of producing or distributing coal (any of several types of carbon fuel). A person in the business or occupation of producing (and selling) charcoal.

   For this reason, the collier took constant care to keep the covering of earth in good order.

3. 3

   A vessel carrying a bulk cargo of coal.

   By 1830, more than two million tons of coal a year, principally from the North East, arrived in London by coastal collier, and that figure reached three million tons by the 1840s.

4. 4

   A sailor on such a vessel.

5. 5

   slangA non-traveller.

Forms

plural

colliers