charcoal

plural charcoals

1. countableuncountableusuallyimpure carbon obtained by destructive distillation of wood or other organic matter, that is, heating it in the absence of oxygen.

   But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion

   1 more example

   The grate was laid with charcoal, to that she put a light, and then, as if she had forgotten something, hurried to the library, and carefully locked the door. First returning to see that the fire had kindled, she then went to the window, which, with the first gleam of moonlight, she cautiously unclosed, and stepped into the shrubbery.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 325–326

2. countableusuallyA stick of black carbon material used for drawing.

   He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.

   1879, Th Du Moncel, The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph, page 166

3. countableusuallyA drawing made with charcoal.
4. uncountableusuallyA very dark gray colour.

comparative more charcoal · superlative most charcoal

1. Of a dark gray colour.

   Two vultures […] stood silent side by side like smoking coworkers on break, one charcoal eye staring back at me indifferently.

   2020, “Zoo”, in Still at the Rough Cusp of Renaissance, performed by Good Fuck

2. Made of charcoal.

   But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries. By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.

   2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion

present singular third person charcoals · participle present charcoaling · participle past charcoaled · past charcoaled

1. To draw with charcoal.
2. To cook over charcoal.