shovel

Meaning

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. Not to be confused with a spade, which is designed solely for small-scale digging and incidental tasks such as chopping of small roots.
2. A mechanical part of an excavator with a similar function.
3. A spade.
4. Short for shovel hat.

spade

scoop

power shovel

digging tool

serve food

steam navvy

scoop shovel

dredger shovel

single-bucket excavator

backing-off

drag shovel

shovel dredger

onebucket excavator

monobucket excavator

one-bucket excavator

ammunition

single bucket excavator

Frequency

Hyphenated as

shov‧el

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈʃʌvl̩/

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”), Swedish skyffel, skovel (“shovel”), Icelandic skófla (“shovel”).