Miner

How to spell miner

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce miner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does miner mean?

1. nounA person who works underground extracting coal, ore, or other minerals.

Miner in a sentence

• Every miner wore a helmet fitted with a lamp before descending the shaft.

• The coal miner spent ten hours a day cutting seams far below the surface.

Where does miner come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is built from the verb and noun 'mine', meaning an excavation dug to extract coal, ore, or precious metals, plus the agent suffix '-er' that marks a person who performs an action. The root 'mine' came into English in the 1300s from Old French 'mine', a digging or vein of ore, with the related verb 'miner' meaning to dig or burrow underground. The deeper origin is debated, though many trace it to a Celtic or Gaulish word for a vein of metal. By the late medieval period 'miner' described both the labourer who dug for ore and, in warfare, the soldier who tunnelled beneath fortifications to collapse them, which is how the explosive 'mine' got its name. The spelling trap is purely the identical-sounding 'minor': remember the buried 'mine' inside 'miner', the place where the worker actually digs.

How the word is built

• mine (an excavation for ore or coal)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)

Words that sound like miner

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• minor: Of lesser importance, size, or seriousness when compared with something else.