Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An inclined or vertical shaft or passage between levels in a mine.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In mining, a vertical or inclined excavation which is like a shaft except that it does not rise to the surface. The winze usually connects one level with another, for the purpose of promoting the ventilation of that part of the workings near to which it is. Winzes also, to a certain extent, serve the purpose of mills or passes, since the stoping is often begun from them, and some time must necessarily elapse before a regular mill can be formed in the deads.
- n. A curse or imprecation.
- n. A corrupt form of winch.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Mining.) A small shaft sunk from one level to another, as for the purpose of ventilation.
Etymologies
- Alteration of winds, 1757, plural of wind. (Wiktionary)
- Alteration of obsolete winds, probably from wind2, apparatus for winding. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At other times the men lose hold of the ladders -- ` fall away 'from them, as they express it -- or stumble into a winze, which is a small shaft connecting level with level, in which latter case death is almost certain to ensue, many of the winzes being sixty feet deep.”
“At length the gallery came to an end, though from it a small "winze," or passage, barely wide enough to crawl through, led upward at a sharp angle.”
“A water filled winze with log cribbing stands across from the adit within the stope.”
Information, Culture, Policy, Education: Spooky spaces underground: abandoned American iron mines
“The name 'Winzy' might suggest that the protagonist of this story is a comic character; but the Scottish word 'winze' means curse and is here used to emphasize the tragic curse of eternal life suffered by the Mortal Immortal.”
“She knew how the stones fell, how a slip-ping shelf of rock, an ill-guided pick, or a miner's spell might collapse the whole spindly arrangement of tunnel and winze and shortwall until the ground above them shuddered as the planet fell in on itself.”
“He should enter the mine and follow the left drift until he came upon McIntyre in the winze.”
“Raising the flame to his smoke, he lit it, then flicked the match into the winze with a shrug.”
“Owing to the excellent showing of ore obtained on the 3,000 level by the Hale & Norcross Company, and to the continuation of the ore below that level (as shown by a winze sunk in the vein), the management determined to sink the shaft to the vertical depth of 3,200 ft.”
“At this point they are connected by a drift, from which an exploring shaft or winze is sunk to a further depth of 666 feet, and from that again was put down a bore hole 49 feet in depth, making the total depth reached 3,562 feet.”
“It thus all arrives at a single point, -- the winze, -- and must be drawn from a single ore-pass into the level.”
Principles of Mining Valuation, Organization and Administration
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘winze’.
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Coal Mining Terms
Coal mining has engendered fascinating subcultures in industry, labor, music, folklore, environment and energy. It has a rich vocabulary as well, and I've encountered some gorgeous mining words. I...
firedamp, scrip, bituminous, anthracite, company store, blackdamp, brattice, bug dust, tipple, whitedamp, float dust, fly ash and 136 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery-w
from phrontistery.info
wack, wadmal, waftage, wafture, wagonette, wagtail, wainage, wainscot, wair, waits, wakerife, waldflute and 282 more...
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underwords
submerged words about the underwater realm and dug up words from the underground
deep-diving, scuba, scuba diver, scuba diving, scuba set, carbonic acid, subterranean, catachthonian, cave-dwelling, cannel coal, rebreathers, mofette and 1 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, W
washboard, winterbourne, winze, wirble, waterway, windrow, winceyette, waft, whiffletree, wheelbarrow, whicker, wacky and 170 more...
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Geology Words
The descriptive science described.
earth, lithosphere, mineral, convection, heat flow, ore, deep time, fossil, formation, rock, tectonics, extinction and 281 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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Lowry
nutant, meed, donga, mephitic, punk, caliginous, cauchemar, horripilation, hyacinthine, corposant, counterscarp, garboon and 65 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for winze.
yarb "The shop, adjacent to the Palace, but divided from it by the breadth of a steep narrow street desperate as a winze, was opening early."
- Lowry, Under the Volcano Jun 25, 2011