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Definition of "anthracite" []

  • A dense, shiny coal that has a high carbon content and little volatile matter and burns with a clean flame. Also called hard coal. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "anthracite" in a sentence
  • "In the mountains of Pennsylvania the same coal beds, somewhat affected by the metamorphism which all the rocks of the Alleghanies have shared, have reached the stage of _semi-bituminous_ coals, where half the volatile constituents have been driven off; again, in the anthracite basins of eastern Pennsylvania, the distillation further effected has formed from these coals _anthracite_, containing only from three to ten per cent. of volatile matter; while in the focus of metamorphic action, at Newport,"
  • "Anthracite -- The name anthracite, or hard coal, is applied to those dry coals containing from 3 to 7 per cent volatile matter and which do not swell when burned."
  • "Since, however, Canada receives practically all her anthracite from the Wyoming Basin which now supplies about half the anthracite produced on the Continent, at the present rate of production this basin will be exhausted in about thirty-five years, and we cannot expect large supplies from Pennsylvania for many more years."