noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
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"It was said that such train crews kept a spare shovel on board because, on numerous occasions, the beginner had not only zealously thrown coal into the firebox but had let the shovel go as well."
"No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down, when a queer old hat, something like a doctor of divinity's shovel, is chucked on to the stage […]"
"The workers were shovelling gravel and tarmac into the pothole in the road."
"Already late for work, I shovelled breakfast into my mouth as fast as possible."
"Pretty soon along came a steam shovel and dug a road through the hill covered with daisies."
A hand tool with a handle, used for moving portions of material such as earth, snow, and grain from one place to another, with some forms also used for digging. In strict usage differentiated from a spade, which is designed solely for small-scale digging and incidental tasks such as chopping of small roots.
Common synonyms include: excavator, backhoe, bail, bar spade, bore, bucket.
Pretty soon along came a steam shovel and dug a road through the hill covered with daisies.
Pronounced /ˈʃʌv.əl/.
From Middle English shovele, schovel, showell, shoule, shole (> English dialectal shoul, shool), from Old English scofl (“shovel”), from Proto-Germanic *skuflō, *skūflō (“shovel”), equivalent to shove + -el (instrumental/agent suffix). Cognate with Scots shuffle, shule, shuil (“shovel”), Saterland Frisian Sköifel (“shovel”), West Frisian skoffel, schoffel (“hoe, spade, shovel”), Dutch schoffel (“spade, hoe”), Low German Schüfel, Schuffel (“shovel”), German Schaufel (“shovel”), Danish skovl (“shovel”), Faroese skupla (“shovel”), Icelandic skófla (“shovel”), Norwegian skyfle (“shovel”), skyffel (“shovel, hoe”), Swedish skyffel, skovel (“shovel”).