Lig·nite n.  Min. Mineral coal retaining the texture of the wood from which it was formed, and burning with an empyreumatic odor. It is of more recent origin than the anthracite and bituminous coal of the proper coal series. Called also brown coal, wood coal.

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 Brown a. [Compar. Browner superl. Brownest.]  Of a dark color, of various shades between black and red or yellow.
    Cheeks brown as the oak leaves.   --Longfellow.
 Brown Bess, the old regulation flintlock smoothbore musket, with bronzed barrel, formerly used in the British army.
 Brown bread (a) Dark colored bread; esp. a kind made of unbolted wheat flour, sometimes called in the United States Graham bread. “He would mouth with a beggar though she smelt brown bread and garlic.” --Shak. (b) Dark colored bread made of rye meal and Indian meal, or of wheat and rye or Indian; rye and Indian bread. [U.S.]
 Brown coal, wood coal. See Lignite.
 Brown hematite or Brown iron ore Min., the hydrous iron oxide, limonite, which has a brown streak. See Limonite.
 Brown holland. See under Holland.
 Brown paper, dark colored paper, esp. coarse wrapping paper, made of unbleached materials.
 Brown spar Min., a ferruginous variety of dolomite, in part identical with ankerite.
 Brown stone. See Brownstone.
 Brown stout, a strong kind of porter or malt liquor.
 Brown study, a state of mental abstraction or serious reverie.


 Coal n.
 1. A thoroughly charred, and extinguished or still ignited, fragment from wood or other combustible substance; charcoal.
 2. Min. A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile matter.
 Note: ☞ This word is often used adjectively, or as the first part of self-explaining compounds; as, coal-black; coal formation; coal scuttle; coal ship. etc.
 Note: ☞ In England the plural coals is used, for the broken mineral coal burned in grates, etc.; as, to put coals on the fire. In the United States the singular in a collective sense is the customary usage; as, a hod of coal.
 Age of coal plants. See Age of Acrogens, under Acrogen.
 Anthracite or Glance coal. See Anthracite.
 Bituminous coal. See under Bituminous.
 Blind coal.  See under Blind.
 Brown coal or Brown Lignite. See Lignite.
 Caking coal, a bituminous coal, which softens and becomes pasty or semi-viscid when heated. On increasing the heat, the volatile products are driven off, and a coherent, grayish black, cellular mass of coke is left.
 Cannel coal, a very compact bituminous coal, of fine texture and dull luster. See Cannel coal.
 Coal bed Geol., a layer or stratum of mineral coal.
 Coal breaker, a structure including machines and machinery adapted for crushing, cleansing, and assorting coal.
 Coal field Geol., a region in which deposits of coal occur. Such regions have often a basinlike structure, and are hence called coal basins. See Basin.
 Coal gas, a variety of carbureted hydrogen, procured from bituminous coal, used in lighting streets, houses, etc., and for cooking and heating.
 Coal heaver, a man employed in carrying coal, and esp. in putting it in, and discharging it from, ships.
 Coal measures. Geol. (a) Strata of coal with the attendant rocks. (b) A subdivision of the carboniferous formation, between the millstone grit below and the Permian formation above, and including nearly all the workable coal beds of the world.
 Coal oil, a general name for mineral oils; petroleum.
 Coal plant Geol., one of the remains or impressions of plants found in the strata of the coal formation.
 Coal tar. See in the Vocabulary.
 To haul over the coals, to call to account; to scold or censure. [Colloq.]
 Wood coal. See Lignite.


 brown coal
      n : intermediate between peat and bituminous coal [syn: lignite,
           wood coal]