mining

1 of 2

noun

min·​ing ˈmī-niŋ 

1

: the process or business of working mines

… even in the best of times coal mining was a boom-and-bust industry tied to the health of the wider economy.

—Dan Kaufman

—often used before another noun

a mining town

mining operations

2

: a process by which the solving of a complex mathematical puzzle verifies a set of cryptocurrency transactions, enters that set into the relevant blockchain, and releases new units of that cryptocurrency into circulation

In the cryptocurrency industry, crypto mining means adding new blocks of data to a blockchain. Cryptocurrency miners have to find a solution to a complex mathematical problem before they can create a new block. They are then rewarded with newly-created coins of cryptocurrency.

—Bitstamp.net

The transaction is then added to the blockchain—a secure, perpetually generating ledger of transactions. As more transactions are conducted, however, the mining difficulty increases and requires greater computing power.

—David Green and Siddhartha Kazi

see also:

data mining

mining

2 of 2

present participle of mine entry 4

Examples of mining in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Eagle Creek, one of the forest’s six roadless areas, sits near southern Illinois landscapes with a long history of coal mining, including active and historic mining areas outside the Shawnee’s boundaries. — Christiana Freitag, Chicago Tribune, 4 Oct. 2026

The system has applications in oil and gas, power generation, mining and waste management. — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026

Heavy metals occur naturally in soil, water and air, but agricultural, industrial and mining pollution can increase and spread contamination. — Sandee Lamotte, CNN Money, 2 Oct. 2026

Bolsonaro has called for easing environmental rules and allowing farming or mining on Indigenous lands, raising concern that forest loss could increase even if current restrictions remain technically intact. — Gabriela Sá Pessoa, Los Angeles Times, 2 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing mining

• data mining

Rhymes for mining

• dining
• fining
• lining
• pining
• shining
• signing
• twining
• vining
• whining
• aligning
• assigning
• calcining

Kids Definition

mining

noun

min·​ing

ˈmī-niŋ

: the process or business of working mines