lignite

From French lignite, from Latin lignum (“firewood”) +‎ -ite.

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪɡnaɪ̯t/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• enPR: lĭgnīt

lignite (countable and uncountable, plural lignites)

1. A low-grade, brownish-black coal.

   Synonyms: brown coal, dirty coal

   • 1978 February 14, “Texas Turning to Its Reserves of Lignite”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     Texas industry is turning to lignite, a kind of poor man's coal, to replace its dwindling allocations of natural gas. The Lone Star State now gets an estimated 12 percent of its electricity from lignite, and that figure is expected to double by 1985.

   • 2023 January 10, Kate Connolly, “Climate activists ‘prepared to risk lives’ to stop German coalmine”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     [Robert] Habeck, who has found himself in the extremely uncomfortable position of turning from a long-term campaigner against fossil fuels to a short-term defender of them, said: “Putin’s war of aggression is forcing us to temporarily make greater use of lignite so that we save gas in electricity generation. This is painful but necessary in view of the shortage of gas.”

From Latin lignum n (“firewood”) + -ite.

• IPA^(key): /li.ɲit/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

lignite f (plural lignites)

1. lignite (type of coal)

• “lignite”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

lignite f (plural ligniti)

1. lignite

• lignitico

• Gentili, gentili

• linhite
• lignito, linhito (Brazil)

Borrowed from French lignite.

• Hyphenation: lig‧ni‧te

lignite f (plural lignites)

1. lignite (type of coal)

• “lignite”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “lignite”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026