shovel

noun

1. 1

   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.

   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.

2. 2

   A mechanical part of an excavator with a similar function.

3. 3

   Any shovel in the above senses, or any spade.

4. 4

   Variant of shovel hatEllipsis of shovel hat.

   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 […]

verb

1. 1

   To move materials with a shovel.

   The workers were shovelling gravel and tarmac into the pothole in the road.

   After the blizzard, we shoveled the driveway for the next two days.

   I don't mind shoveling, but using a pickaxe hurts my back terribly.

   Off again, a fierce light now trailing out behind us from the open furnace door, lighting up the fireman as he shovelled more coal on to the furnace, [...].

2. 2

   figurativeTo move with a shoveling motion.

   Already late for work, I shovelled breakfast into my mouth as fast as possible.

   The keeper then seemed to claw it out with fabulous reflexes only for TV replays to show the ball had most probably crossed the line before Forster had shovelled it away.

Forms

plural

shovels

past tense

shoveled, shovelled

past participle

shoveled, shovelled

present participle

shoveling, shovelling

third person singular

shovels