Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A freight-car designed especially for carrying coal, sometimes made of iron, with a drop-bottom.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Western Front; of the improvement of our ferocious-looking armored train, with its coal-car mounted naval guns, buttressed with sand bags and preceded by a similar car bristling with machine guns and Lewis automatics in the hands of a motley crew of Polish gunners and Russki gunners and a British sergeant or two.

    The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 Harry H. Mead

  • But the boys were not so successful as they had hoped to be in boarding the train and were able to get into only an open coal-car.

    The Hero of Hill House Mabel Hale

  • Suddenly his eye fell upon an empty coal-car standing on the track at the very edge of the slope, and he cried,

    Derrick Sterling A Story of the Mines Kirk Monroe

  • In reality it was a coal-car, bearing in one end a crouching figure and a crutch.

    Derrick Sterling A Story of the Mines Kirk Monroe

  • Thus, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the train I was on ran into a coal-car.

    The Story of a Pioneer Shaw, Anna Howard, 1847-1919 1929

  • Thus, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the train I was on ran into a coal-car.

    The Story of a Pioneer 1915

  • He never looked for me again, and I rode that coal-car precisely one thousand and twenty-two miles, sleeping most of the time and getting out at divisions (where the freights always stop for an hour or so) to beg my food.

    Holding Her Down 1907

  • He never looked for me again, and I rode that coal-car precisely one thousand twenty-two miles, sleeping most of the time and getting out at divisions (where freights always stop for an hour or so) to beg my food.

    "Holding Her Down" - More Reminiscences of the Underworld 1907

  • He never looked for me again, and I rode that coal-car precisely one thousand and twenty-two miles, sleeping most of the time and getting out at divisions

    Holding Her Down 1907

  • Hugh invented an apparatus for lifting a loaded coal-car off the railroad tracks, carrying it high up into the air and dumping its contents into a chute.

    Poor White Sherwood Anderson 1908

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