Adjacent Words

Charcoal definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CHARCOAL, n. Coal made by charring wood; the remains of wood burnt under turf, and from which all watery and other volatile matter has been expelled by heat. It makes a strong heat, and is used in furnaces, forges, private families, etc. It is black, brittle, light and in odorous, and not being decomposable by water or air, will endure for ages without alteration.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: of a very dark grey [syn: charcoal, charcoal-grey, charcoal-gray] n
1: a carbonaceous material obtained by heating wood or other organic matter in the absence of air [syn: charcoal, wood coal]
2: a stick of black carbon material used for drawing [syn: charcoal, fusain]
3: a very dark grey color [syn: charcoal, charcoal grey, charcoal gray, oxford grey, oxford gray]
4: a drawing made with a stick of black carbon material v
1: draw, trace, or represent with charcoal

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English charcole Date: 14th century 1. a dark or black porous carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances (as from wood by charring in a kiln from which air is excluded) 2. a. a piece or pencil of fine charcoal used in drawing b. a charcoal drawing 3. a dark gray II. transitive verb Date: 1965 charbroil

Britannica Concise

Impure form of carbon, obtained as a residue when material containing carbon is partially burned or heated with limited access to air. Coke, carbon black, and soot are forms of charcoal; other forms are named for their source material, such as wood, blood, or bone. Largely replaced by coke in blast furnaces and by natural gas as a raw material, charcoal is still used to make black gunpowder and in case-hardening metals. Activated charcoal is a finely powdered or highly porous form whose surface area is hundreds or thousands of square meters per gram. It has many uses as an adsorbent (see adsorption), incl. for poison treatment, and as a catalyst or catalyst carrier.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a an amorphous form of carbon consisting of a porous black residue from partially burnt wood, bones, etc. b (usu. in pl.) a piece of this used for drawing. 2 a drawing in charcoal. 3 (in full charcoal grey) a dark grey colour. Phrases and idioms: charcoal biscuit a biscuit containing wood-charcoal to aid digestion. Etymology: ME COAL = charcoal: first element perh. chare turn (cf. CHAR(1), CHAR(2))

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Charcoal Char"coal`, n. [See Char, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and Coal.] 1. 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. (Fine Arts) Finely prepared charcoal in small sticks, used as a drawing implement. Animal charcoal, a fine charcoal prepared by calcining bones in a closed vessel; -- used as a filtering agent in sugar refining, and as an absorbent and disinfectant. Charcoal blacks, the black pigment, consisting of burnt ivory, bone, cock, peach stones, and other substances. Charcoal drawing (Fine Arts), a drawing made with charcoal. See Charcoal, 2. Until within a few years this material has been used almost exclusively for preliminary outline, etc., but at present many finished drawings are made with it. Charcoal point, a carbon pencil prepared for use in an electric light apparatus. Mineral charcoal, a term applied to silky fibrous layers of charcoal, interlaminated in beds of ordinary bituminous coal; -- known to miners as mother of coal.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Charcoal is a black substance obtained by burning wood without much air. It can be burned as a fuel, and small sticks of it are used for drawing with.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Carbon (more or less pure).

Moby Thesaurus

air brush, alcohol, art paper, ash, ashes, benzine, black and white, blackening, blacking, blackwash, brand, briquette, brouillon, brush, burnable, burnt cork, butane, calx, camera lucida, camera obscura, canvas, carbon, carbon black, cartoon, chalk, charcoal drawing, chiaroscuro, cinder, clinker, coal, coke, combustible, coom, crayon, crow, delineation, design, diagram, doodle, dope, draft, drafting, drawing, drawing paper, drawing pencil, drier, dross, easel, ebauche, ebon, ebony, esquisse, ethane, ethanol, fireball, firing, fixative, flammable, flammable material, fuel, fuel additive, fuel dope, fume, gas, gas black, gas carbon, gasoline, graph, ground, heptane, hexane, inflammable, inflammable material, ink, isooctane, jet, jet fuel, kerosene, lampblack, lava, lay figure, line drawing, maulstick, medium, methane, methanol, natural gas, night, octane, oil, paint, paintbrush, palette, palette knife, paraffin, pastel, peat, pen-and-ink, pencil, pencil drawing, pentane, pigments, pitch, propane, propellant, raven, reek, rocket fuel, rough copy, rough draft, rough outline, scoria, scratchboard, siccative, silhouette, silver-print drawing, sinopia, sketch, sketchbook, sketching, sketchpad, slag, sloe, smoke, smudge, smut, soot, spatula, spray gun, stove black, study, stump, sullage, tar, tracing, turf, varnish, vignette