MINER

7 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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MINERAuthored
The Law Mind • 1180 words
Definition
One who extracts metals, minerals, coal, or other valuable substances from the earth by digging, excavating, or otherwise working a mine. The term is occupational, not technical: it describes anyone engaged in the work of mining, regardless of whether that person possesses scientific training or operates sophisticated machinery. Courts have held that the designation imports neither learning nor skill — it is the activity, not the expertise, that defines membership in the class. In older sources and some historical legal contexts, MINER appears as a corrupted or abbreviated cross-reference pointing toward OYER AND TERMINER — a completely unrelated doctrine governing royal commissions for criminal jurisdiction. Researchers encountering this usage in older indexes or digests should not confuse the two. See COMMON CONFUSION below. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who works in a mine; also, an operator of ordnance mines or explosive devices; in modern usage, a person or software system that mines cryptocurrency. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who mines; a digger for metals; one engaged in getting ore, coal, or precious stones from the earth; also one who digs military mines, as in armies of sappers and miners. Extended colloquially to certain insects and birds. The legal meaning tracks the common meaning closely, but with one important difference: legal definitions — including those developed in mining-district case law — deliberately exclude any implication of skill, training, or specialization. A researcher applying ordinary-language assumptions about professional competence to a legal instrument or labor classification that uses the word "miner" may import a meaning the law intentionally rejects. The cryptocurrency usage is entirely modern and has no historical legal counterpart; treat it as contextually distinct. ---
Common Confusion
MINER / OYER AND TERMINER: Some historical legal dictionaries — notably Rapalje & Lawrence — list MINER only as a cross-reference to OYER AND TERMINER. This is not because the terms are related in meaning. The connection is purely orthographic: older typesetters or index compilers occasionally placed abbreviated or corrupted entries under apparent headwords that were actually fragments of longer terms (here, "terminer"). A researcher who follows that cross-reference expecting occupational mining law will find criminal jurisdiction doctrine instead. The two have no substantive connection. ---
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research significance of MINER is jurisdictional and statutory, not definitional. Western American mining law — particularly that developed in Colorado, California, Nevada, and other public-land states during the second half of the nineteenth century — generated a dense body of case law, territorial legislation, and federal statute around the rights, customs, and classifications of miners. The General Mining Act of 1872 and its predecessors used the term broadly and without qualification. Researchers working in this corpus must understand that courts explicitly refused to read skill or training requirements into the word, which has implications for labor classifications, wage disputes, liability questions under mine safety statutes, and the scope of mining customs recognized as locally binding law. The miner's inch — a unit of water flow historically used in Western mining jurisdictions — appears in some dictionaries under the MINER heading and in others under INCH. Researchers tracing water rights claims in mining contexts should check both headings. In federal land law, the distinction between a "miner" and a "locator" under the hardrock mining claim system carries legal weight: a miner performs the extraction, while a locator establishes the possessory claim. These roles frequently overlap in practice, but instruments, affidavits, and statutes may use the terms distinctly. Historical labor law sources will use MINER to define the scope of early union jurisdiction, workers' compensation eligibility, and industry-specific safety regulations. The definition's deliberate exclusion of skill requirements was sometimes contested in labor disputes over craft versus industrial union jurisdiction. Researchers in the cryptocurrency context will find no historical legal authority on "mining" in that sense. Modern regulatory material on cryptocurrency mining sits in financial regulation and energy law, not in the mining law corpus. Cross-contamination between these corpora in search results is a real practical hazard. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) gives a consistent, occupational definition: one who mines, a digger for metals and other minerals. Both editions quote the same Colorado precedent — Watson v. Lederer, 11 Colo. 577 — for the explicit proposition that the word imports neither learning nor skill. This is one of the rare instances where a historical dictionary quotes a case directly in the headnote, suggesting the editors considered this interpretive point significant enough to anchor definitionally. Rapalje & Lawrence contribute nothing substantive to MINER as an occupational term; their entry is entirely a cross-reference artifact. Burrill's Law Dictionary, similarly, does not define MINER as a person; the Burrill entry under this apparent headword actually addresses the Latin justiciarii ad audiendum et terminandum — the oyer and terminer commissioners — and is irrelevant to mining law. Researchers relying on Burrill for occupational mining definitions will find nothing useful under this heading. None of the historical dictionaries address mineral rights severance, the legal relationship between miners and surface owners, or the procedural customs of mining districts — topics that are central to Western mining law research but must be pursued through case reporters, territorial codes, and treatises rather than these dictionary sources. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Western U.S. jurisdictions — particularly Colorado, California, Nevada, and Arizona — developed the most extensive body of mining-specific case law and custom, and their definitions of "miner" and related terms may diverge from Eastern or federal usage. Appalachian coal-mining jurisdictions generated distinct labor and safety law that uses the term in occupational and regulatory contexts with its own history. Federal law under the General Mining Act of 1872 and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act applies its own operative definitions, which should be consulted directly rather than inferred from dictionary sources. ---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Mineral Rights — Ownership, Severance, and Mineral Estates (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia) Oil and Gas Leasing on Federal Lands — Mineral Leasing Act and OCS (The Law Mind Environmental & Energy Law Encyclopedia) ---
Related Terms
MINERAL — the substance being extracted; definitional scope directly affects who qualifies as a miner MINING CLAIM — the possessory right established under federal hardrock mining law LOCATOR — one who establishes a mining claim; distinct from but often the same person as the miner MINER'S INCH — unit of water flow measurement used in Western mining water rights OYER AND TERMINER — unrelated doctrine; see COMMON CONFUSION above MINERAL RIGHTS — the severed property interest in subsurface resources LODE — a vein of metallic ore; central to the distinction between lode and placer claims PLACER — a type of mineral deposit; placer mining involves different extraction methods and legal treatment than lode mining PROSPECTOR — informal synonym in some historical sources; not a term of legal art
MINERmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
Certain persons appointed by the king's commission, among whom were usual- ly two judges of the courts at Westminster, and who went twice in every year to every county of the kingdom, (except London and Middlesex,) and, at what was usually called the "assizes," heard and determined all trea- sons, felonies, and misdemeanors. Brown.
MINERmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
One who mines; a digger for metals and other minerals. While men of scientific attainments, or of experience in the use of machinery, are to be found in this class, yet the word by which the class is des- ignated imports neither learning nor skill. (Colo.) 19 Pac. Rep. 604.
MINERmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
One who mines; a digger for metals and other minerals, While men of scientific attainments, or of experience in the use of machinery, are to be found in this class, yet the word by which the class is designated iniports neither learning nor skill. Watson v. Lederer, 11 Colo. 577, 19 Pac. 604, 1 L. R. A. 854, 7 Am. St. Rep. 268. —Miner’s inch. See INCH. MINERAL, n. Any valuable inert or lifeless substance formed or deposited in its present position through natural agencies alone, and which is found either in or upon the soil of the earth or in the rocks beneath the soil. Barringer & Adams, Mines, p. Ixxvi. Any natural constituent of the crust of the earth, inorganic or fossil, homogeneous in structure, having a definite chemical composition and Enome crystallization. See Webster; Cent. Vict. ; The term includes all fossil bodies or matters dug out of mines or quate whence any ios may be dug, such as beds of stone which may be quarried. Earl of Rosse v. Wainman, 14 Mees. & W. 872. In its common acceptation, the term may be said to include those parts of the earth which are capable of being mined or extracted from beneath the surface, and which have a commercial value. Williams v. South Penn Oil Co.. 52 W. Va. 181, 43 S. EB. 214, 60 LL R. A. 79%. But, in its widest sense, “minerals” may be described as comprising all the substances which MINERAL 780 now form or which once formed a part of the solid body of the earth, both externai and internal, and which are now destitute of or incapable of supporting animal] or vegetable life. In this sense, the word includes not only the various ores of the precious metals, but also coal, clay, marble, stone of various sorts, slate, salt, sand, natural gas, ee and water. See Northern Pac. is Fed. ceria 43 : C. 235, 18 Atl. ‘oat 6 I. R.A. 7315 Am. Dec. 760; Dunham v. Kirkpatrick, "101 Pa. 43, 47 Am. Rep. 696; State v. Parker, 61 Tex. 268; ids way Light, ete, Co. v. Elk County, 191 P . 465, 43. Atl. 323. MINERAL, adj. Relating to minerals or the process and business of mining; bearing or producing valuable minerals. —Mineral district. A term occasionally used in acts of congress, designating in a general way those portions or regions of the country where valuable minerals are mostly found, or where the business of mining is chiefly carried on, but carrying no very precise meaning and not a known term of the law. See U. SN. v. ieee (C. C. 11 Fed. 490.—Miineral lands. See LAND. eral land entry. See ENTRY.
MINERn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
One who mines; a digger for metals, etc.; one engaged in the business of getting ore, coal, or precious stones, out of the earth; one who digs military mines; as, armies have sappers and miners. Any of numerous insects which, in the larval state, excavate galleries in the parenchyma of leaves. They are mostly minute moths and dipterous flies. The chattering, or garrulous, honey eater of Australia (Myzantha garrula). Miner's elbow (Med.), a swelling on the black of the elbow due to inflammation of the bursa over the olecranon; -- so called because of frequent occurrence in miners. -- Miner's inch, in hydraulic mining, the amount of water flowing under a given pressure in a given time through a hole one inch in diameter. It is a unit for measuring the quantity of water supplied.
minernoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A person who works in a mine. | An operator of ordnance mines and similar explosives. | Any bird of one of several species of South American ovenbirds in the genus Geositta. | Any bird of one of several species of Australian honeyeaters in the genus Manorina. | Software or hardware that mines, or creates new units of cryptocurrency. | A person who mines cryptocurrency.
minernoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Any bird of one of four species of Australian endemic honeyeaters in the genus Manorina.

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