EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR LODE
A railroad four miles long, conveys the quartz from the lode to the mills.
The lode descends steeply, and the excavation must follow its course.
When he crosses a lode, its bending is supposed to indicate the presence thereof.
To strike a lode and win a braw lass a' in the day, ye may say.
I give you my word, Slade, this is the only mine or lode of which I know.
Mebbe he believes that bunk about the lode being copper, and mebbe he don't.
And tell them we've devised a way to mine the lode without them—got that?
Silver seldom is found in a lode extending with any great regularity.
No one ever saw the vein or lode in the process of formation.
There would be enough for both if they succeeded in uncovering the lode.
WORD ORIGIN
original Middle English spelling of load (n.), and custodian of most of the original meaning of "way, course, carrying." Differentiation in sense took place 16c. Mining sense of "vein of metal ore" is from c.1600, from notion of miners "following" it through the rock.