Definition of "lignite" []

• A soft, brownish-black coal in which the alteration of vegetable matter has proceeded further than in peat but not as far as in bituminous coal. Also called brown 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.

• "The subsoil has been rich in lignite deposits for the last 50 years, which is at the same time the main source of electricity production throughout the country."
• "If your cousin Annie has a jet belt-clasp or bracelet, and if you find in aunt Edith's box of old treasures an odd - shaped brooch of jet, you may remember the coal again; for jet is only one kind of lignite, which is a name for a certain preparation of coal."
• "Former communist East Germany's power industry was heavily reliant on brown coal, or lignite, which is strip-mined in open pits that can sometimes be the size of small towns."