chal·dron

(chôl′drən)

A unit of dry measure formerly used in England, equal to 4 quarters or about 32 bushels for grain and 36 bushels for coal.

[Middle English, from Old French chauderon, augmentative of chaudiere, kettle, from Late Latin caldāria; see cauldron.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

chaldron

(ˈtʃɔːldrən) or

chalder

(Units) a unit of capacity equal to 36 bushels. Formerly used in the US for the measurement of solids, being equivalent to 1.268 cubic metres. Used in Britain for both solids and liquids, it is equivalent to 1.309 cubic metres

[C17: from Old French chauderon cauldron]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

chal•dron

(ˈtʃɔl drən)

n.

an English dry measure formerly used for coal, coke, lime, etc., varying locally from 32 to 36 bushels or more.

[1375–1425; late Middle English, earlier chaudron < Middle French chauderon cauldron]

chaldron

A measure of volume. 1 chaldron = 36 bu.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

chaldron - a British imperial capacity measure (liquid or dry) equal to 36 bushels

British capacity unit, Imperial capacity unit - a unit of measure for capacity officially adopted in the British Imperial System; British units are both dry and wet

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

per chaldron. All he did was to sign the circulars with his flourish and signature, and direct them in a shaky, clerklike hand.

View in context

(18) The chaldron was a volume measure used for coal.

THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE RENTIER: HOW NAPOLEONIC WAR FINANCE KICK-STARTED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

AMONG the cases dealt with by Teesside Magistrates' Court on August 19 were: Symon Luke Dobson, 28, of Chaldron Way, Eaglescliffe, given a 12-month conditional discharge, ordered to pay PS20 in charges and PS40 costs for possession of a Class B drug.

Scales of Justice

HALF MACGUFFIN, HALF HOLY GRAIL, the "impossible object" driving Jonathan Lethem's novel Chronic City (Doubleday, 2009) is a vase of transcendent attractiveness called a chaldron. Some readers may take the word to be the author's coinage, but it dates back to at least sixteenth-century England (an early spelling of cauldron) and denotes an inexact measure of volume, generally of coal.

Obscure objects: Andrew Hultkrans on the thing

230) reported, "one man [could] dig many Chaldron of this Coal in a day"--a chaldron being slightly more than one tonne.

Earliest history of coal mining and grindstone quarrying at Joggins, Nova Scotia, and its implications for the meaning of the place name "Joggins"

In 1600, Queen Elizabeth's "Great Charter" gave monopoly control over the coal trade and principal council offices in Newcastle to the Hostmans' Company (1) in return for a shilling tax on every chaldron (a measurement of coal) of coal shipped from the River Tyne.

'Pound foolish penny wise' system: the role of accounting in the improvement of the River Tyne, 1800-1850

(20) He also had `40 chaldron of coals' valued at 48 [pounds sterling]: Buckinghamshire Probate Inventories, ed.

Straw, bracken and the Wicklow whale: the exploitation of natural resources in England since 1500