Vocabulary     

What does charcoal mean?

Definitions for charcoal
ˈtʃɑrˌkoʊlchar·coal

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word charcoal.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. charcoal, wood coalnoun

    a carbonaceous material obtained by heating wood or other organic matter in the absence of air

  2. charcoal, fusainnoun

    a stick of black carbon material used for drawing

  3. charcoal, charcoal grey, charcoal gray, oxford grey, oxford graynoun

    a very dark grey color

  4. charcoaladjective

    a drawing made with a stick of black carbon material

  5. charcoal, charcoal-grey, charcoal-grayverb

    of a very dark grey

  6. charcoalverb

    draw, trace, or represent with charcoal

Wiktionary

  1. charcoalnoun

    Impure carbon obtained by destructive distillation of wood or other organic matter, that is to say, heating it in the absence of oxygen.

  2. charcoalnoun

    A stick of black carbon material used for drawing.

  3. charcoalnoun

    A drawing made with charcoal.

  4. charcoalverb

    To draw with charcoal

  5. charcoalverb

    To cook over charcoal

  6. charcoaladjective

    Of a dark gray colour.

  7. Etymology: From charcole, from charren + cole, equivalent to. More at ajar, coal.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Charcoalnoun

    Coal made by burning wood under turf. It is used in preparing metals.

    Etymology: imagined by Stephen Skinner to be derived from char, business; but, by Mr. Edward Lye, from to chark, to burn.

    Seacoal lasts longer than charcoal; and charcoal of roots, being coaled into great pieces, lasts longer than ordinary charcoal. Francis Bacon, Natural History, №. 779.

    Love is a fire that burns and sparkles,
    In men as nat’rally as in charcoals,
    Which sooty chymists stop in holes,
    When out of wood they extract coals. Hudibras.

    Is there, who, lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls
    With desp’rate charcoal round his darken’d walls? Alexander Pope.

Wikipedia

  1. Charcoal

    Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, called charcoal burning, often by forming a charcoal kiln, the heat is supplied by burning part of the starting material itself, with a limited supply of oxygen. The material can also be heated in a closed retort. Modern "charcoal" briquettes used for outdoor cooking may contain many other additives, e.g. coal. This process happens naturally when combustion is incomplete, and is sometimes used in radiocarbon dating. It also happens inadvertently while burning wood, as in a fireplace or wood stove. The visible flame in these is due to combustion of the volatile gases exuded as the wood turns into charcoal. The soot and smoke commonly given off by wood fires result from incomplete combustion of those volatiles. Charcoal burns at a higher temperature than wood, with hardly a visible flame, and releases almost nothing except heat and carbon dioxide. One kilogram of charcoal contains 680 to 820 grams of carbon, which, when combined with oxygen from the atmosphere, form 2.5 to 3 kg of carbon dioxide.

ChatGPT

  1. charcoal

    Charcoal is a lightweight, black, porous material that is produced by the slow heating of various types of wood or other organic materials in the absence of oxygen. It is largely made up of carbon and is primarily used as a fuel source in barbecuing, in metalwork as a reducing agent, and in artwork for drawings. Charcoal is also used in medical applications for its absorption properties, and in filtration systems.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Charcoalverb

    impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used for fuel and in various mechanical, artistic, and chemical processes

  2. Charcoalverb

    finely prepared charcoal in small sticks, used as a drawing implement

  3. Etymology: [See Char, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and Coal.]

Wikidata

  1. Charcoal

    Charcoal is a light black residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen. It is usually an impure form of carbon as it contains ash; however, sugar charcoal is among the purest forms of carbon readily available, particularly if it is not made by heating but by a dehydration reaction with sulfuric acid to minimise introducing new impurities, as impurities can be removed from the sugar in advance. The resulting soft, brittle, lightweight, black, porous material resembles coal.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Charcoal

    chär′kōl, n. charred wood or coal made by charring wood; the carbonaceous residue of vegetable, animal, or mineral substances when they have undergone smothered combustion. [The first element of the word is of doubtful origin.]

U.S. National Library of Medicine

  1. Charcoal

    An amorphous form of carbon prepared from the incomplete combustion of animal or vegetable matter, e.g., wood. The activated form of charcoal is used in the treatment of poisoning. (Grant & Hackh's Chemical Dictionary, 5th ed)

Military Dictionary and Gazetteer

  1. charcoal

    One of the ingredients of gunpowder. It is made by distilling small sticks of wood in closed retorts. Willow, alder, poplar, and dogwood are some of the woods used. In distilling the heat should be kept below redness. Charcoal should be light in weight, and have a velvety fracture. It inflames at about 460° Fahr. Its composition and properties vary with the nature of the wood and mode of distillation employed.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of charcoal in Chaldean Numerology is: 7

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of charcoal in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of charcoal in a Sentence

  1. Rachael Kapatuka:

    The smoke from the charcoal is discomforting, so I need to use it outdoors, when it is windy, cooking outdoors is challenging because you get dust and other trash in your utensils.

  2. Howard Buffett:

    Hydro plants are really the game changer, it provides jobs, it provides new resources, new investment. It helps keep people from cutting the trees down for charcoal in the forests. So it's like a win, win, win.

  3. Clare Akamanzi:

    We expect to have affordable gas which is environmentally friendly, we expect that people can use gas instead of charcoal, the same with industries like tea factories instead of using firewood, they use gas. It's part of our green agenda.

  4. Angelique Hilaire:

    I can't afford to rent anywhere else, every time it rains I pray to God for it to stop. But what can I do ? Even a short downpour can leave the capital flooded as piles of rubbish on the streets and debris filled canals block drains, which exacerbates flooding. Natural disasters linked to climate change will only get more frequent and extreme in the future, experts say. Decades of deforestation have left Haiti even more exposed to natural disasters, with less than three percent of its original forest cover still intact, according to the UNDP. This causes soil erosion and reduces the ability of soil to retain water, making Haiti more vulnerable to flooding and landslides. During heavy rainfall, there are few trees to stop water washing down the bare mountains. While 5.5 million tree seedlings have been planted in Haiti by the UNDP since 2010, not enough has been done to stop people cutting down trees in the first place. Selling charcoal, which comes from burning wood, is used for cooking and is a key source of income for many Haitians living in the countryside. .

  5. Buddhist:

    Neither live with a bad man nor be at enmity with him; even as if you take hold of glowing charcoal it will burn you, if you take hold of cold charcoal it will soil you.

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"charcoal." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 19 Jan. 2025. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/charcoal>.

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