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Glite Dictionary
stamp battery

stamp battery

9.9
A machine with heavy metal weights that fall to crush rock to get gold
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : batería de estampillas
  • The old gold mine was equipped with a stamp battery to crush the quartz rock.

Examples

  • Many stamp batteries were used during the gold rush.

  • Engineers restored the historic stamp battery as part of the mining museum exhibit.

  • The noise from the stamp battery could be heard from miles away during the rush.

  • The stamp battery crushed the gold ore efficiently.

  • The old gold mine was equipped with a stamp battery to crush the quartz rock.

  • Engineers restored the historic stamp battery as part of the mining museum exhibit.

  • The noise from the stamp battery could be heard from miles away during the rush.

Synonyms

stamp
vsstamp battery
  • Archaic
3 8.6

A heavy machine that pounds or crushes rock at a mine

is the group of heavy bars in one mortar rather than a single bar
battery
vsstamp battery
  • Archaic
3 9.5

A set of heavy machines used to crush rock in a mine

is used especially in gold mining rather than for ores generally
stamp mill
vsstamp battery
  • Archaic
9.3

A machine that crushes rock to get metal from it

is the specific set of pounders operated together inside one mortar
quartz battery
vsstamp battery
  • Archaic
9.9

A machine with heavy metal hammers that crushes quartz rock to get gold and other minerals

is used for crushing ores generally, not only for gold-bearing rocks
stamping mill
vsstamp battery
  • Archaic
9.1

A machine that crushes rock that has metal in it to get metals like gold

is the smaller set of pounders in a single mortar, not the whole facility

How Powerful

stamp battery
  • Archaic
9.9
stamp mill
  • Archaic
9.3
crusher
  • Specialized
61 3.9
pestle
5 7.4

Surface Forms

stamp battery singular
stamp batteries plural

Morphology

stamp + battery

The meaning is directly compositional: 'stamp' (a crushing machine) combined with 'battery' in the sense 'a group or series of similar devices' yields 'a set of stamps operated together' which matches the given definition. While 'battery' also has other senses (e.g. electrical cell), the grouping sense is common and cross-linguistically regular, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings can infer the MWE.

Etymology

Stamp battery is a mining machine made of many heavy stamps that fall together into one stone bowl to crush rock with gold in it. The word battery here means a 'group' working together, so the name simply means a set of heavy stamps used to crush ore.