carry coals to newcastle









carry coals to newcastle


< /ˈnuˌkæs əl əˌpɒnˈtaɪn, -əˌpɔn-, -ˌkɑ səl-, ˈnyu-/. a seaport in Tyne and Wear, in NE England, on the Tyne River: shipbuilding; major coal center.

  • a seaport in E New South Wales, in SE Australia.
  • a town in SE Ontario, in S Canada, NE of Toronto, on Lake Ontario.
    • Idioms

    1. carry coals to Newcastle,
      1. to take something to a place where its kind exists in great quantity.
      2. to do something wholly unnecessary.

    noun

    1. a port in SE Australia, in E New South Wales near the mouth of the Hunter River: important industrial centre, with extensive steel, metalworking, engineering, shipbuilding, and chemical industries. It suffered Australia’s first recorded fatal earthquake, in 1989. Pop: 279 975 (2001)

    noun

    1. Duke of, the title of Thomas Pelham Holles. 1693–1768, English Whig prime minister (1754–56; 1757–62): brother of Henry Pelham

    To do something that is obviously superfluous; Newcastle is a city in northeast England where coal is mined: “Karen wanted to give Dad a magazine subscription for his birthday, but I said that would be like carrying coals to Newcastle, since he already has fifteen or twenty subscriptions.”

    Do or bring something superfluous or unnecessary, as in Running the sprinkler while it’s raining, that’s carrying coals to Newcastle. This metaphor was already well known in the mid-1500s, when Newcastle-upon-Tyne had been a major coal-mining center for 400 years. It is heard less often today but is not yet obsolete.

    see carry coals to Newcastle.

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