[f. CHOKE- + DAMP.] A miner’s term for the carbonic acid gas (or air largely mixed therewith) that accumulates in old workings in coal-pits, and at the bottom of wells, quarries and caves; after an explosion in a coal-mine, it often rises and mingling with the remaining nitrogen, steam, smoke and dust, constitutes the after-damp, which suffocates the survivors from the deflagration of the fire-damp.
[1642. see CHOKE v. 2.]
1741. Brownrigg, in Phil. Trans., LV. 240. The choak-damp, or stith, found in the coal-mines.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. xi. 482. This [carbonic acid] gas, or air, is often found to occupy the lower parts of mines. It is called the choke-damp by the miners.
1812. J. Hodgson, in J. Raine, Mem. (1857), I. 97. This after-damp is called choak-damp and surfeit by the colliers.
1871. Hartwig, Subterr. W., xxiii. 278. The choke-damp, or black-damp, the name given by the miners to carbonic acid gas.
1878. L. P. Meredith, Teeth, 192. By lowering the patient into the choke-damp of a well.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 27 Sept., 10/1. The officials, realizing that the catastrophe was due to choke-damp, called to the visitors to run.
fig. 1873. F. Hall, Mod. English, 18. Stifled by the choke-damp of folly.
