ˈcoal-hole
1. A small store-place for coals; a coal-cellar; also, the store-place for fuel in a ship.
| 1661–2 Pepys Diary 8 Feb., All the day with the colliers removing the coles out of the old cole hole into the new one. 1797 Anti-Jacobin No. 1 She whipp'd two female 'prentices to death, And hid them in the coal hole. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 657 The types were flung into the coalhole. 1859 Smiles Self-Help 13 He would give him his passage if he would trim the coals in the coal-hole of the steamer. |
† 2. The place in a furnace for the admission of coal.
| 1641 French Distill. iii. (1651) 83 It must be foure [spans] high; one for the Ash-hole, another above the grate to the middle Coal-hole. |
3. Sometimes loosely used for the flap-covered hole in a pavement opening into a coal-cellar. U.S.
| 1854 B. P. Shillaber Mrs. Partington 56 When you look up..avoid the coal-holes and cellar-ways that are open for your unwary feet. 1895 N.Y. Dramatic News 23 Nov. 4/3 Some of the dramatis personæ disappear as quickly as if they had fallen through a coal hole. |