carry coals to Newcastle

Cultural  

1. 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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carry coals to Newcastle Idioms  

1. 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

It is nothing like so large as the blank arch which at home we filled with brickbats or leased for a gin-shop under the last railway we made to carry coals to Newcastle.

From Mornings in Florence by Ruskin, John

"Perhaps," said Firkin at last, "Kurz Pacha means to say that to offer flowers to a lady who has already so beautiful a bouquet, would be to carry coals to Newcastle."

From The Potiphar Papers by Curtis, George William

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

From The Proverbs of Scotland by Hislop, Alexander