coalface
Britishnoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That’s where the drill meets the coalface, so to speak.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 5, 2026
Since the late 1980s, he has been at the coalface of psychedelic counterculture.
From Salon • Mar. 8, 2024
Meanwhile, Mr Hunt told BBC Breakfast he would "get the British economy going", having served "at the coalface" by setting up his own business.
From BBC • Jul. 11, 2022
But he saw his future with the union, and to lead it, he had to respect the rules requiring time near the coalface.
From Washington Post • Aug. 6, 2021
After a lunch of milled corn and salted cabbage, the exhausted children, their faces and clothes covered in coal dust, headed back to the coalface, carrying candles in the ink-black mine.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
