diggings

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an area where miners dig for gold or other valuable minerals

   Prospectors hurried to the new diggings after gold was found upriver.

2. 2
   noun

   informal, dated: temporary living quarters or lodgings

   The actor invited us back to his diggings after the performance.

The lexicalized plural of digging. The mining sense arose from excavations made in searching for ore, especially nineteenth-century gold diggings; the informal sense 'lodgings' developed from digs, probably as a place one had found or made for oneself.

Topics