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

Hemmed in by deep forest in eastern Belgium, near the Dutch border, the small town of Genk was in coal-mining country, its football club at its heart. — Jacob Whitehead, New York Times, 9 Sep. 2026

Weakened demand and higher fuel prices, caused by the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, weighed on the mining, trade, and manufacturing sectors. — semafor.com, 9 Sep. 2026

Potential applications include selecting sites for critical-materials mining, data centers, disaster-response infrastructure and facilities needed for major international events such as the FIFA World Cup or Olympics. — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 9 Sep. 2026

The mining giant is down 5% from the high hit in late August. — Jason Gewirtz, CNBC, 9 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