Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Keep "shoal" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
If two options seem close, choose the one that best matches the audience and purpose of the sentence.
Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "shoal" intact in the sentence you are editing.
Check whether the replacement sounds more formal, casual, emotional, technical, or forceful than the original word.
Read the full sentence after the swap. Keep the synonym only when the sentence becomes clearer or more precise.
Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "shoal", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
If the synonym makes the sentence slower, vaguer, or more dramatic than intended, keep "shoal" or choose a simpler alternative from the closest-match group.
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
7 translations across 7 languages.
20 total sentences available.
Tom and Mary were on the verge of diving, off the left edge of the sentence, in the infinite corpus, when they spotted underneath a shoal of hungry contributors, teeth out, ready to jump on them and shred their mistakes down to the last one.
Source: tatoeba (1077668)
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly: if the assassination / Could trammel up the consequence, and catch / With his surcease success; that but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all here, / But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, / We'd jump the life to come.
Source: tatoeba (2028527)
We've spotted that shoal of herring.
Source: tatoeba (11317292)
We've located the shoal of herring.
Source: tatoeba (11317293)
Showing 4 of 20 available sentences.
Closest matches include school, shallow, a mass of, a school, a world of.
Compare the replacement against real sentence context. This entry includes sample sentences so you can check tone, grammar, and meaning before swapping words.