n. [ See Char, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and Coal. ] 1. Impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used for fuel and in various mechanical, artistic, and chemical processes. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (Fine Arts) Finely prepared charcoal in small sticks, used as a drawing implement. [ 1913 Webster ]

Animal charcoal, a fine charcoal prepared by calcining bones in a closed vessel; -- used as a filtering agent in sugar refining, and as an absorbent and disinfectant. --
Charcoal blacks, the black pigment, consisting of burnt ivory, bone, cock, peach stones, and other substances. --
Charcoal drawing (Fine Arts), a drawing made with charcoal. See Charcoal, 2. Until within a few years this material has been used almost exclusively for preliminary outline, etc., but at present many finished drawings are made with it. --
Charcoal point, a carbon pencil prepared for use in an electric light apparatus. --
Mineral charcoal, a term applied to silky fibrous layers of charcoal, interlaminated in beds of ordinary bituminous coal; -- known to miners as mother of coal. [ 1913 Webster ]

adj. very dark gray.
Syn. -- charcoal. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. 1. a delicatessen that specializes in dressed meats and meat dishes, particularly pork products. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

2. the items typically sold in a charcuterie{ 1 }. [ PJC ]

n. 1. [ From the sounds of the first five letters. ] The Runic alphabet; -- so called from the first six letters f, u, þ (th), o (or a), r, c (=k). See rune. [ Also spelled futhark ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

☞ The spelling futharc represents most accurately the original values of these six Runic letters. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

☞The name is derived from the sounds of the first five letters of the runic alphabet, f, u, th, o, r, and c. The vowel sound of the fourth letter corresponded more closely to a in the earlier versions used in Scandinavian countries, and the earlier alphabet is therefore referred to as the futharc or futhark. The fifth rune had a sound like that of k, and in the Danish futhark the fifth character is that transliterated as k. Thus the runic alphabet is also called the futhork or futhark. The third rune had a sound and form resembling that of the Anglo-Saxon thorn, which represented the th sound at the beginning of the word thorn. The origins of the runic alphabet are obscure, but the earliest forms may have been invented around the second century A.D. in eastern Europe. The forms of some of the letters show a relation to the Latin or Greek alphabets, and the futhorc was presumably in part an adaptation of those alphabets to the sound of the Germanic tongues. An inscription of the futhark itself, an ordered list of the runes, was found on an object dated as early as the fifth century A.D. The Scandinavian futharc had 16 runes, but the futhorc used in Anglo-Saxon England had 31. The futhark was mostly used for writing on wood, for which reason the runes were comprised of only vertical and diagonal strokes. The degree of widespread use of the futharc is not known but it was probably used mostly for short messages or inscriptions on objects. Fewer than 10, 000 runic inscriptions, both on wood and stone, have been found. The number and forms of some of the runes varied over time and locality. R. I. Page, “Runes”. [ PJC ]

The letters are called Runes and the alphabet bears the name Futhorc from the first six letters. I. Taylor. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]