different between sandbank vs shoal

English

Etymology

From sand +? bank. Compare Dutch zandbank (“sandbank, shoal”), German Sandbank (“sandbank, sandbar, shoal”), Swedish sandbank (“sandbank, bar”).

Noun

sandbank (plural sandbanks)

1. A ridge of sand along a shore that is partially or totally submerged and thus a hazard to shipping.

Synonyms

• shoal
• sandbar
• sandridge

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /???l/, /???l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle English schold, scholde, from Old English s?eald (“shallow”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *skalidaz, past participle of *skaljan? (“to go dry, dry up, become shallow”), from *skalaz (“parched, shallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelh?- (“to dry out”). Cognate with Low German Scholl (“shallow water”), German schal (“stale, flat, vapid”). Compare shallow.

Alternative forms

• sheld (dialectal)
• shaul, shawl, shauld, schald, shaud, shawd (Scotland)
• shole, shoald, shold

Adjective

shoal (comparative shoaler, superlative shoalest)

1. (now rare) Shallow.
   • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, III.19:

     But that part of the coast being shoal and bare, / And rough with reefs which ran out many a mile, / His port lay on the other side o' the isle.

Noun

shoal (plural shoals)

1. A sandbank or sandbar creating a shallow.
   • The god himself with ready trident stands, / And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands, / Then heaves them off the shoals.

2. A shallow in a body of water.

   • The depth of your pond should be six feet; and on the sides some shoals for the fish to sun themselves in and to lay their spawn.

Synonyms

• (sandbank): sandbar, sandbank

Translations

Verb

shoal (third-person singular simple present shoals, present participle shoaling, simple past and past participle shoaled)

1. To arrive at a shallow (or less deep) area.
2. (transitive) To cause a shallowing; to come to a more shallow part of.
   • 1859', Matthew Fontaine Maury, Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts

     Noting the rate at which she shoals her water - […]

3. To become shallow.

Etymology 2

1570, presumably from Middle English *schole (“school of fish”), from Old English s?eolu, s?olu (“troop or band of people, host, multitude, division of army, school of fish”), from Proto-Germanic *skul? (“crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to divide, split, separate”). Cognate with West Frisian skoal (“shoal”), Middle Low German sch?le (“multitude, troop”), Dutch school (“shoal of fishes”). Doublet of school.

Noun

shoal (plural shoals)

1. Any large number of persons or things.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Vicissitude of Things

     great shoals of people

2. (collective) A large number of fish (or other sea creatures) of the same species swimming together.
   • c. 1661, Edmund Waller, On St. James's Park

     Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides.

Synonyms

• (fish): school

Translations

Verb

shoal (third-person singular simple present shoals, present participle shoaling, simple past and past participle shoaled)

1. To collect in a shoal; to throng.

   The fish shoaled about the place.

Anagrams

• HALOs, LOHAS, Sohal, halos, shola, solah