Anthracite

//ˈænθɹəˌsaɪt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A form of carbonized ancient plants; the hardest and cleanest-burning of all the coals. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    a hard natural coal that burns slowly and gives intense heat wordnet
  3. 3
    A dark grey color. countable, uncountable

    "In the past, when the author was studying, architects only employed a very restricted palette of colours: the white of modernism, black, a “friendly” shade of anthracite and light grey!"

Synonyms

All synonyms
hard coalanthracite coalcoal

Example

More examples

"North Korea continuously expanded its export of resources such as anthracite and iron ore to China."

Etymology

Via Latin from Ancient Greek ἀνθρακῖτις (anthrakîtis, “a kind of coal”), from ἄνθραξ (ánthrax, “charcoal”). By surface analysis, anthrac- + -ite.

Related phrases

meta-anthracitehard coal

More for "anthracite"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.