charcoal

«charcoal» in Mova's school dictionary: a black, light material made by burning wood slowly with… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (charcoal, uncountable; a charcoal = a stick for drawing, charcoals); adjective (charcoal grey)

meaning for a pupil

1) Charcoal is a black, light material made by burning wood slowly with very little air; it burns hot and is used as fuel for barbecues. tree →

2) A charcoal is a stick of this material used for drawing, or a drawing made with it. tree →

3) Charcoal, or charcoal grey, is a very dark grey colour. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life charcoal is barbecue fuel; in art lessons it makes soft dark lines that smudge; in science it is an example of carbon and of a chemical change (wood heated without enough oxygen). Safety: hot charcoal stays hot for hours, and burning charcoal indoors gives off carbon monoxide, a deadly gas. Phrases: charcoal briquettes, charcoal drawing, charcoal grey, activated charcoal.

examples

• Dad lit the charcoal for the barbecue. tree →
• We drew the bowl of fruit with charcoal in art class. tree →
• The charcoal smudged when I touched it with my finger. tree →
• Never bring a charcoal grill into a tent or a house. tree →
• Charcoal is mostly carbon. tree →
• She wore a charcoal grey coat. tree →
• The coals were glowing red under a layer of white ash. tree →
• Activated charcoal is used in some water filters. tree →

note

Usually uncountable (some charcoal, a bag of charcoal); countable only for drawing sticks or drawings (two charcoals). Charcoal is not the same as coal: coal is dug out of the ground, charcoal is made from wood. Trap: charcoal can look cold and grey but still be very hot inside.

In the corpora

• Wood gives off gases that burn with flames; charcoal has already had its gases driven off, so it glows instead.
• Burning charcoal gives off carbon monoxide, an invisible poisonous gas, so barbecues must never be brought indoors or into a tent.
• Oil mattered little before the 1800s, when the main fuels were wood, charcoal and, later, coal.
• Smelting heats ore with fuel such as charcoal or coke (a fuel made from coal) to free the metal.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «charcoal» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.