shovel

plural shovels

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.

   1943 July and August, T. Lovatt Williams, “Some Reminiscences of the Footplate—1”, in Railway Magazine, pages 233–234

2. A mechanical part of an excavator with a similar function.
3. USbroadlyespeciallyAny shovel in the above senses, or any spade.
4. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis 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 […]

   1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days

present singular third person shovels · US participle present shoveling · UK participle present shovelling · US participle past shoveled · US past shoveled · UK participle past shovelled · UK past shovelled

1. To move materials with a shovel.

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

   4 more examples

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

   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, [...].

   1944 May and June, “When the Circle was Steam Operated”, in Railway Magazine, page 134

   The coal is then transferred to broad-gauge wagons for transport to Dublin. The transhipment is a rather laborious business, the coal being shovelled by hand from one wagon to another.

   1951 May, R. K. Kirkland, “The Cavan & Leitrim Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 343

2. figurativelytransitiveTo move with a shoveling motion.

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

   1 more example

   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.

   2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record