Coal vs. Peat — What's the Difference?

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Peat (), sometimes known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs.

A combustible black or dark brown rock consisting chiefly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground seams and used as fuel

A brown deposit resembling soil, formed by the partial decomposition of vegetable matter in the wet acidic conditions of bogs and fens, and often cut out and dried for use as fuel and in gardening

Provide with a supply of coal

Partly decomposed vegetable matter, usually mosses, found in bogs and sometimes burned as fuel or mixed into soil to improve growing conditions.

A natural dark brown to black graphitelike material used as a fuel, formed from fossilized plants and consisting of amorphous carbon with various organic and some inorganic compounds.

Soil formed of dead but not fully decayed plants found in bog areas, often burned as fuel.

A piece of this substance.

(obsolete) A pet, a darling; a woman.

A glowing or charred piece of solid fuel.

A small person; a pet; - sometimes used contemptuously.

Charcoal.

A substance of vegetable origin, consisting of roots and fibers, moss, etc., in various stages of decomposition, and found, as a kind of turf or bog, usually in low situations, where it is always more or less saturated with water. It is often dried and used for fuel.

To burn (a combustible solid) to a charcoal residue.

Partially carbonized vegetable matter saturated with water; can be used as a fuel when dried

To provide with coal.

To take on coal.

(uncountable) A black or brownish black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel.

(countable) A type of coal, such as bituminous, anthracite, or lignite, and grades and varieties thereof, as a fuel commodity ready to buy and burn.

(countable) A piece of coal used for burning this use is less common in American English

(countable) A glowing or charred piece of coal, wood, or other solid fuel.

Charcoal.

(intransitive) To take on a supply of coal (usually of steam ships).

(transitive) To supply with coal.

(intransitive) To be converted to charcoal.

(transitive) To burn to charcoal; to char.

(transitive) To mark or delineate with charcoal.

A thoroughly charred, and extinguished or still ignited, fragment from wood or other combustible substance; charcoal.

A black, or brownish black, solid, combustible substance, dug from beds or veins in the earth to be used for fuel, and consisting, like charcoal, mainly of carbon, but more compact, and often affording, when heated, a large amount of volatile matter.

To burn to charcoal; to char.

To mark or delineate with charcoal.

To supply with coal; as, to coal a steamer.

To take in coal; as, the steamer coaled at Southampton.

Fossil fuel consisting of carbonized vegetable matter deposited in the Carboniferous period

A hot glowing or smouldering fragment of wood or coal left from a fire

Burn to charcoal;

Supply with coal

Take in coal;