noun

• A deep narrow vertical hole, or sometimes a horizontal tunnel, that gives access to a mine.

  ‘one member of this party almost vanished down a hidden disused mineshaft’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The geology of the immediate area of the Detroit Salt Mine was derived from logs of the mineshafts, exploratory core holes and nearby oil, gas and brine wells.’
  • ‘As part of the work, deep mineshafts and an underground canal system will be made safe.’
  • ‘Disused mineshafts in Johannesburg could be turned into catacomb-style cemeteries, in a bid by the City Parks agency to accommodate the increasing number of people dying from AIDS.’
  • ‘Gone are the disused mineshafts, spoil heaps and rusting machinery and in their place are smart new offices and homes, shops and leisure facilities.’
  • ‘The most significant discoveries came from the upper fills of the mineshaft excavated in 1971 by Roger Mercer, where two inhumation burials were uncovered.’
  • ‘There is enough money to keep the mineshafts open until next Tuesday, but after that the colliery will have to be ‘capped’ unless further funds can be found.’
  • ‘In the last days of his life he was digging a mineshaft in his backyard, convinced that deposits of gold were to be found there.’
  • ‘A retired mining engineer was shocked to discover an old mineshaft had opened up in a field where he walks every day.’
  • ‘In yesterday's note, I forgot to mention that we also explored some abandoned mineshafts and prisons (where we climbed the guard tower and found the old gallows chamber).’
  • ‘When my father would come home from a long day in the mineshafts, he was always drenched from head to toe in that foul paste.’
  • ‘We shot on real locations, and we actually went down the mineshafts.’
  • ‘We played at the tops of mineshafts in West Virginia and at union meetings in New York.’
  • ‘It took three hours of climbing to reach the top where a sign warned of mineshafts.’
  • ‘Yet Li's film is also a fine social comedy - albeit one colored as black as pitch - about how you don't have to work in a mineshaft to see your life descending into darkness.’
  • ‘Fred had already dug seven metres of a mineshaft at his Grade II listed home when councillors refused him retrospective planning permission after complaints from neighbours.’
  • ‘Seven workers were killed when the fire raced through the mineshaft.’
  • ‘Skippy was just explaining to the park ranger the whereabouts of the lost boy in the mineshaft, when we heard the blast.’
  • ‘Curiously, Yang avoids the claustrophobic tension of the mineshaft.’
  • ‘Two men working down a mineshaft in rural China pose as brothers.’
  • ‘The workers were digging at an abandoned mineshaft that was depleted of commercial reserves.’