COLNE, a market-town, county of Lancaster, 26 miles north of Manchester, on a small affluent of the Calder, near the Liverpool and Leeds canal. It is a place of great antiquity, and supposed by some to be the Colonia of the Romans. Many Roman coins have been found here. As early as the fourteenth century Colne was the seat of a woollen manufacture, but its principal manufactures now are printed calicoes and mousselines-de-laine. In the neighbourhood are several limestone and slate quarries. Market-day Wednesday. Pop. (1851) 6644.