carry coals to Newcastle

To do something that is obviously superfluous; Newcastle is a city in northeast England where coal is mined: “Karen wanted to give Dad a magazine subscription for his birthday, but I said that would be like carrying coals to Newcastle, since he already has fifteen or twenty subscriptions.”

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Idioms and Phrases

Do or bring something superfluous or unnecessary, as in Running the sprinkler while it's raining, that's carrying coals to Newcastle. This metaphor was already well known in the mid-1500s, when Newcastle-upon-Tyne had been a major coal-mining center for 400 years. It is heard less often today but is not yet obsolete.

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Example Sentences

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A brother alderman, who happened to be a wag, remarked that "to bestow a key upon Key would be to carry coals to Newcastle, and that, therefore, Sir John must be satisfied with his habitual self-possession."

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My spirits rose every mile we left New Orleans behind us; I felt, besides, that to bring my skill to such a market was but to carry "coals to Newcastle;" nor, from the skipper's account, did Texas offer a much more favorable field.

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To carry coals to Newcastle; carry nothing from, or out of, this house; he carried these qualities into all he did; carry across the street, over the bridge, through the woods, around or round the corner; beyond the river; the cable was carried under the sea.

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To carry coals to Newcastle is well understood to be like giving alms to the wealthy; but viewed in union with the others would show what a prominent place coals seem to have in the popular mind.

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The English say, "To carry coals to Newcastle."

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carry back carrycot

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