▪ I. mining, vbl. n.
(ˈmaɪnɪŋ)
[f. mine v. + -ing1.]
1. a. The action of the verb mine in various senses.
| 1523 Ld. Berners Froiss. I. ccli. 372 They coude nat geat it by no assaute, nor none other wayes at their ease, without it were by mynynge. 1579–80 North Plutarch, Camillus (1595) 145 Now when his mining fell out according to his good hope, he gaue an assaulte to the walles. 1645 Milton Tetrach. Wks. 1851 IV. 257 St. Paul having thus clear'd himselfe, not to goe about the mining of our Christian liberty. 1764 Grainger Sugar Cane iv. 305 They..‘melt with minings of the hectic fire’. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. i. xi. (1869) I. 181 Mining..is considered..as a lottery. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. xii. (1879) 258 The rage for mining has left scarcely a spot in Chile unexamined. |
b. with qualifying word prefixed, as
gold-mining,
lead-mining,
tin-mining;
placer-mining,
vein-mining;
hydraulic-mining, etc., for which see those words.
† 2. concr. A (military) mine.
Obs.| 1598 Barret Theor. Warres 136 Pioners to make trenches, Rampiers, Minings. |
3. attrib. and
Comb., as
mining-camp,
mining captain,
mining company,
mining-district,
mining engineer,
mining-lamp,
mining-man,
mining population,
mining recorder,
mining-speculation,
mining-statute,
mining-tool,
mining-town,
mining-township (
Austral.),
mining-work;
mining geology, geology as applied to mining;
mining-hole, a hole bored to receive a blasting-charge in mining;
mining-ship, one that carries and lays down submarine mines in naval warfare.
| 1902 ‘Mark Twain’ in Harper's Monthly Mag. Feb. 431/2 Don't you put on any exclusiveness in a mining-camp. 1966 ‘E. Lathen’ Death shall Overcome i. 9 Wall Street is power. The talk..closes mining camps in the Chibougamou. |
| 1853 Harper's Mag. Mar. 442/2 We are accompanied by Captain John Cox, the mining captain. |
| 1859 L. Sawyer Diary 23 Sept. in Way Sk. (1926) 116 The..river mining companies which have not already proved failures. |
| 1838 Murray's Handbk. N. Germany 421 The mining district of the Erzgebirge. |
| 1872 Vermont Board Agric. Rep. I. 629 Captain Thomas Pollard..had formerly been mining engineer. 1897 ‘Mark Twain’ Following Equator 687 The mining engineers from America. 1941 R. Peele (title) Mining engineers' handbook. |
| 1906 J. Park Textbk. Mining Geol. i. 1 Economic or Mining Geology, which bears more directly on mining, and the development of the mining industry. |
| 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 852 The ore..was attacked by a single man, who bored a mining hole. |
| 1893 Dublin Rev. July 652 The most perfect combination of mining-lamp and fire-damp indicator yet produced. |
| 1874 R. W. Raymond Statistics of Mines 499 He talked over the scheme with many railroad and mining-men. 1930 J. Dos Passos 42nd Parallel i. 128 The bars..were full of ranchers and miningmen. |
| 1854 A. Delano Life on Plains xxvii. 382 There is arable land enough..to supply the whole mining population with vegetables, fruit and grain. 1876 White Pine News (Hamilton, Nevada) 22 July 3/1 An election took place on Treasure Hill on Thursday for Mining Recorder. 1968 Mining recorder [see file v.3 1 c]. |
| 1905 Westm. Gaz. 28 Jan. 2/2 If the Russians took mines out ten miles from the shore in a mining-ship and laid them there. |
| 1824 R. Stuart Hist. Steam Engine 121 The failure of some of the great mining speculations. |
| 1555 Eden Decades 49 All maner of dygginge or myninge tooles. |
| 1829 Dr. Willard in R. G. Thwaites Early Western Trav. (1905) XVIII. 359 The mining towns are mostly dependent on their supplies from abroad. 1856 Hutchings Mag. July 33/2 [We had] to..make a ‘pilgrim's progress’ to the nearest mining town. 1902 E. Banks Newspaper Girl 87 The mining towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. 1944 N. W. Ross Westward the Women 133 She appeared in the mining town of Murray. |
| 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 283 The mining township of Turonia. |
| 1633 T. James Voy. 69 Wee continued our myning worke. |
▪ II. mining, ppl. a. (
ˈmaɪnɪŋ)
[f. mine v. + -ing2.] 1. That mines, in the senses of the verb.
| 1561 Norton & Sackv. Gorboduc i. ii. (1590) B iiij b, That myning fraude shall finde no way to creepe, Into their fenced eares. a 1639 Wotton in Reliq. (1651) 526 The mining Conies shroud in rockie Cels. 1816 Byron Ch. Har. iii. xciv, The..Rhone..whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more. |
2. mining bee, a solitary bee of the family Andrenidæ:, including many British and American species which nest in tunnels in the ground, sometimes grouped in colonies.
| 1893 L. N. Badenoch Romance Insect World iii. 72 (caption) Profile view of nest of a Mining Bee (Andrena vicina). 1912 Sanderson & Jackson Elem. Entomol. xvii. 268 None of the short-tongued bees live in colonies, and many of them make their nests in the ground, which has given them the name of ‘mining bees’. 1974 Country Life 21 Feb. 351/1 The spoil-heaps excavated by mining-bees (Andrena armata) when they make their nests. |