Shoveler
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One who, or that which, shovels.
"The sand was loaded by 3 shovelers into wheelbarrows holding 3.6 cu. ft. each..."
- 2 Any of four species of dabbling duck, in the genus Anas, with distinctive spatulate bills.
- 3 freshwater duck of the Northern Hemisphere having a broad flat bill wordnet
- 4 a worker who shovels wordnet
Example
More examples"I have not yet seen a Northern Shoveler duck."
Etymology
From Middle English schoveler, equivalent to shovel + -er.
From Middle English shoulere, shovellewre, shovelere, schoueler, alteration of earlier schovelerd, schulerde, schevelard (“shovelard”), from schovel (“shovel”), perhaps influenced by malard (“mallard”), on model of Middle Dutch lepelaar (“spoonbill”), with Middle English -ard replacing -aar and later itself replaced by Middle English -er, but not completely certain. Probably at least influenced by the shape of the bill and its feeding behavior.
Related phrases
More for "shoveler"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.