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

Spun out of an Australian crypto mining group in 2024, Nscale is relatively untested. — The Week Uk, TheWeek, 27 Sep. 2026

The petition argues that the decision was incorrect because mining hadn’t occurred on the property for years prior to 1976, said the alliance’s attorney, Henry Josefberg. — Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2026

Five companies—Tactical Resources, USA Rare Earth, MP Materials, Energy Fuels, and NioCorp Developments—are pursuing different parts of that supply chain, from mining and processing to magnet manufacturing. — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 27 Sep. 2026

Diaz was born on June 16, 1920, on what is now the Fort Yuma-Quechan Reservation in Arizona before moving to Nevada as a baby after her father took a mining job in Tonopah, according to her granddaughters. — Toria Sheffield, PEOPLE, 26 Sep. 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