coaling station
- noun
- Archaic
:
estación de carbón
- Today this port is the entrepot of Asian commerce, a coaling station for vessels of all countries, a deep, safe harbor for England's own ships and men-of-war, and a point from which she can command both seas.
- Navy coaling stations
Examples
-
Tirpitz saw the utility of Samoa not only as a coaling station but also as a telegraph repeater station for the "world cable" Germany needed in order to compete with Great Britain on the world stage.
Academic text (2008) -
As it developed into an international coaling station, it attracted labor migrants—both from its own rural hinterland and from across the seas—most of whom joined the swelling local working class and urban poor.
Academic text (2004) -
Washington's new vision, however, hearkens back to U.S. policies of a century ago, when many host states served largely as staging points and "coaling stations" for operations elsewhere.
Academic text (2003) -
The old coaling station served as a crucial supply point for ships needing fuel during their voyages.
-
Many historical naval battles involved fleets that had recently refueled at a coaling station near the coast.
-
During the age of steam-powered vessels, the expansion of coaling stations was essential for international trade routes.
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'coaling' (= supplying or carrying coal) combined with 'station' (a place/building for a service) yields a place where coal is supplied to ships. The noun pattern 'X station' (e.g., 'gas station', 'charging station') is common and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase coaling station comes from the age of steam ships. It was a place where a ship would take on coal at a station to fuel its engines, so the name came to mean 'a port where ships get fuel'.