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• open-cut
  open-cut

  adjective

  noting or pertaining to a type of surface mining in which coal and other flat-lying mineral deposits are removed by the excavation of long, narrow trenches.
• open cut
  open cut

  noun

  civil engineering an excavation made in the open rather than in a tunnel See cut-and-cover

open-cut

American  

[oh-puhn-kuht] / ˈoʊ pənˌkʌt /

adjective

Mining.

1. noting or pertaining to a type of surface mining in which coal and other flat-lying mineral deposits are removed by the excavation of long, narrow trenches.

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open cut British  

noun

1. civil engineering an excavation made in the open rather than in a tunnel See cut-and-cover

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Etymology

Origin of open-cut

First recorded in 1880–85

Example Sentences

His firm, Central Queensland Coal, had proposed to build an open-cut mine about 700km north-west of Brisbane, that would produce both thermal and coking coal and operate for about 20 years.

From BBC • Feb. 8, 2023

But in the 1970s, new technology, including bigger dump trucks, made open-cut mining more competitive.

From Washington Post • Nov. 11, 2021

The term solastalgia was coined by the philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2005 to address feelings of shock in Australia after large open-cut coalmining in New South Wales had transformed the Upper Hunter Valley.

From The Guardian • Oct. 15, 2020

Ore mined by an open-cut method was first shipped in 1925, and in the late 1930s mine owner Universal Insulation Co. merged with Zonolite co. and the mine adopted the Zonolite name.

From Washington Times • Dec. 1, 2019

I rushed into the British Legation through the canal open-cut, and here they were, piles and piles of Indian troops, standing and lying about and waving and talking.

From Indiscreet Letters From Peking Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—The Year of Great Tribulation by Putnam Weale, B. L. (Bertram Lenox)