sea coal

Noun

seacoal (uncountable)

1. Coal from the sea: mineral coal that washes up from the sea onto beaches.
   • John Thompson of Setauket has a permit to go to Flushing and other parts of Long Island to search for sea-coal, of which he hath probable information.1677 October 9, Martha Bockée Flint (1841-1900), editor, Early Long Island, a colonial study, Knickerbocker Press, published 1896, page 22 note 2
2. (Southern-England, historical) Coal from across the sea: mineral coal, as opposed to charcoal, in a time and place in which the former arrived by ship and the latter arrived overland (such as London in Elizabethan times).
   • […] and then of Sea-Coal and other necessary Fewel, fit for the working or melting of these Metalls; […]1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 49
3. (US, historical) Coal to be used at sea: a certain class of mineral coal, especially suitable for the steam engines of ships at sea and locomotives.

   Synonyms:

   steam coal

   1. (US, historical) Such coal used in foundry practice, intermixed with foundry sand or applied in a layer on its face, to modify the behavior of the molten metal.