Lignite

//ˈlɪɡnaɪ̯t// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A low-grade, brownish-black coal. countable, uncountable

    "Texas industry is turning to lignite, a kind of poor man's coal, to replace its dwindling allocations of natural gas. The Lone Star State now gets an estimated 12 percent of its electricity from lignite, and that figure is expected to double by 1985."

  2. 2
    intermediate between peat and bituminous coal wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A ghost town in California.
  2. 2
    A city and town in North Dakota.
  3. 3
    A ghost town in Virginia.

Synonyms

All synonyms
brown coalalabasterasphaltbrown coalcoaldirty coal

Example

More examples

"The opencast lignite mines in Germany cover tens of square kilometers."

Etymology

From French lignite, from Latin lignum (“firewood”) + -ite.

Related phrases

north dakota

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