mine

1 of 4

adjective

: my
used before a word beginning with a vowel or h
this treasure in mine armsWilliam Shakespeare
or sometimes as a modifier of a preceding noun
archaic except in an elevated style

mine

2 of 4

pronoun

singular or plural in construction
: that which belongs to me
used without a following noun as a pronoun equivalent in meaning to the adjective my
Your eyes are brown and mine are green.

mine

3 of 4

noun

1
a
: a pit or excavation in the earth from which mineral substances are taken
b
: an ore deposit
2
: a subterranean passage under an enemy position
3
: an encased explosive that is placed in the ground or in water and set to explode when disturbed
4
: a rich source of supply

mine

4 of 4

verb

mined; mining

transitive verb

1
a
: to dig under to gain access or cause the collapse of (an enemy position)
b
2
a
: to get (something, such as ore) from the earth
b
: to extract from a source
information mined from the files
3
: to burrow beneath the surface of
larva that mines leaves
4
: to place military mines in, on, or under
mine a harbor
5
a
: to dig into for ore or metal
b
: to process for obtaining a natural constituent
mine the air for nitrogen
c
: to seek valuable material in
mine old records for more details
6
: to create or obtain more units of (a cryptocurrency) through a cryptographic process
But bitcoins also need to be generated in the first place. Bitcoins are "mined" when you set your Bitcoin client to a mode that has it compete to update the public log of transactions. All the clients set to this mode race to solve a cryptographic puzzle by completing the next "block" of the shared transaction log. Winning the race to complete the next block wins you a 50-Bitcoin prize.Tom Simonite

intransitive verb

: to dig a mine
miner noun

Examples of mine in a Sentence

Noun a baseball fanatic who is a mine of fascinating trivia about the game the soldiers were careful to disarm any mines they found in their path Verb The area was soon filled with prospectors who were mining for gold. Prospectors mined the region for diamonds. Local people were hired to mine the gold. The enemy had mined the harbor.
Recent Examples on the Web
Adjective
Mining difficulty, a measure of computing power to mine Bitcoin, has swelled almost sixfold since the 2020 halving, according to a biweekly update from crypto-mining website btc.com. David Pan, Fortune, 14 Apr. 2024 If interested in a topic, audiences will get to mine BBC content across text, audio, photos video, and more. Georg Szalai, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Mar. 2024 Torres now works building homes for and rents to mine workers that have flooded the region. Megan Janetsky, Victor R. Caivano and Rodrigo Abd, Quartz, 13 Mar. 2024 Also, foundations for homes were built with mine tailings, which exposed people to toxic levels of mercury and other toxic substances. The Arizona Republic, 29 Feb. 2024 The mine backfill inputs have been reviewed and verified by Dr. David Stone, P.Eng. of MineFill Services, Seattle, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 28 Feb. 2024 Until now, Ukraine has not had a national plan on how to deal with the mine problem—its ad hoc response has been split between the military, NGOs, a small number of private mine-clearance companies, and a small network of government mine-clearance operators. Justin Ling, WIRED, 19 Feb. 2024 Cathy McGrath is among the closest neighbors to the project, with a home backing onto the mountains and just across an arroyo from where the company intends to move mine tailings. Brandon Loomis, The Arizona Republic, 7 Mar. 2024 To fund these wars, Congolese leaders sold mine sites to foreigners. Amel Mukhtar, Vogue, 5 Mar. 2024
Noun
The New York Times reports that Chinese bitcoin mines are now running in at least 14 states. David Pogue, CBS News, 14 Apr. 2024 After that, a silver mine at Melle in France became the dominant source of the precious metal. Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Apr. 2024 According to a 2018 environmental assessment, the mine will need roughly 430,000 gallons of water per day. Caitlin Looby, Journal Sentinel, 10 Apr. 2024 Although the historic silver mines at Tombstone were generally small, Aztec believes they could be related to much larger mesothermal and CRD orebodies below the old mines. Kansas City Star, 10 Apr. 2024 Outside the operations center, a soldier hitched a small trailer to the back of the land drone, which was a bit bigger than a Radio Flyer wagon, and loaded it with thirty antitank mines. Luke Mogelson, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024 The film unveils the struggle of refugees navigating this treacherous terrain, where mines from the Balkan War lurk in the soil and political borders define lives. Leo Barraclough, Variety, 8 Apr. 2024 There has been backlash from some communities to limits enacted last year to local governments' ability to regulate cryptocurrency mines, which are data centers requiring large amounts of computing power and electricity. Andrew Demillo, Quartz, 7 Apr. 2024 Fast forward to 1995, when workers at an open-face coal mine in northern Germany discovered 2-meter-long spruce spears and other wooden artifacts embedded in the former lakeshore. Byandrew Curry, science.org, 1 Apr. 2024
Verb
The upcoming Bitcoin halving event, which will reduce the reward for mining new Bitcoin by half around mid-April, is also responsible for market volatility. Vinamrata Chaturvedi, Quartz, 2 Apr. 2024 As the number of bitcoin created rises to its 21 million maximum, the reward for mining new bitcoin halves. Peter Cohan, Forbes, 30 Mar. 2024 Logs were sourced from one of the oldest wooden structures in the U.S., a former sugar mill in Missouri, stone countertops were imported from China, stone flooring was brought in from Transylvania, and marble was mined in Colorado before it was shipped to Italy for cutting and finishing. Mark David, Robb Report, 26 Mar. 2024 That sound is increasingly prevalent on TikTok, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha begin to mine the recent past for inspiration. Jeff Ihaza, Rolling Stone, 25 Mar. 2024 In the same way the price of gold is linked to a degree to the cost of clawing ore from the ground, the price of bitcoin should at least loosely mirror the hardware and energy costs associated with mining new bitcoin. Joel Khalili, WIRED, 12 Mar. 2024 Plus, Bitcoin’s upcoming halving event, where the reward for mining its transactions is cut in half, is expected to push the top cryptocurrency to new heights. Vinamrata Chaturvedi, Quartz, 19 Mar. 2024 Wakely first struck a deal with Universal Music Group in 2018 to mine its library for projects. Michael Schneider, Variety, 19 Mar. 2024 Green used her decades of experience in industries from railroads to mining to decide which companies were apt to survive and which were likely to die when times were tough. Bywill Daniel, Fortune, 17 Mar. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mine.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Adjective and Pronoun

Middle English min, from Old English mīn — more at my

Noun

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin *mina, probably of Celtic origin; akin to Welsh mwyn ore

First Known Use

Adjective

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above

Pronoun

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above

Noun

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

14th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of mine was before the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near mine

Cite this Entry

“Mine.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mine. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

mine

1 of 4 adjective
archaic
: my
used before a word beginning with a vowel or h or after a noun

mine

2 of 4 pronoun
ˈmīn
: my one : my ones

mine

3 of 4 noun
ˈmīn
1
: a pit or tunnel from which minerals (as coal, gold, or diamonds) are taken
2
: a deposit of ore
3
: an underground passage dug beneath an enemy position
4
: an explosive device placed in the ground or water and set to explode when disturbed
5
: a rich source
a mine of information

mine

4 of 4 verb
ˈmīn
mined; mining
1
: to dig or form mines under a place
2
: to obtain from a mine
mine coal
3
: to lay military mines in or under
mine a harbor
4
: to work in a mine
miner noun
Etymology

Adjective

Middle English min "my," from Old English mīn

Noun

Middle English mine "a pit or tunnel for digging out coal, gold, or diamonds," from early French mine (same meaning)

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