coal chute
1
7.0
- noun
- /koʊl ʧuːt/
- US
:
tubería de carbón
- He slid the bags of coal down the coal chute straight into the cellar.
- an old coal chute
Examples
-
I think the best way in is through the coal chute of the building next door.
-
The coal chute on the side of the house.
Fiction book (1991) -
A coal chute set in the side of the house.
Fiction book (1991) -
Holne Chase is their house with a coal chute and the mask above the door.
Fiction book (2000) -
The builder installed a coal chute to make delivering fuel to the basement easier.
-
During renovations, they discovered an old coal chute that had been sealed for years.
Synonyms
38
4.2
A sloping passage like a slide that lets people or things go down
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from the constituents 'coal' (fuel) and 'chute' (a sloped passage): a chute for coal is exactly the described sloping channel for delivering coal. This is a straightforward noun–noun composition denoting a physical object and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Coal chute comes from a simple picture: a sloping opening or small door in a wall where coal was poured down a chute into a house cellar. That's why it means 'a passage for delivering coal'.