different between trowel vs shovel

English

Etymology

From Middle English trowell, trouel, truel, from Middle French truelle, from Late Latin truella, from Classical Latin trulla, the diminutive of trua (“ladle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?a?.?l/
• Rhymes: -a??l

Noun

trowel (plural trowels)

1. A mason’s tool, used in spreading and dressing mortar, and breaking bricks to shape them.
2. A gardener’s tool, shaped like a scoop, used in taking up plants, stirring soil etc.

3. A tool used for smoothing a mold.

Derived terms

• pointing-trowel

Translations

Verb

trowel (third-person singular simple present trowels, present participle troweling or trowelling, simple past and past participle troweled or trowelled)

1. (transitive) To apply (a substance) with a trowel.

2. (transitive) To pass over with a trowel.
3. (colloquial, figuratively) To apply something heavily or unsubtly.
   • 2014, Steve Rose, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: a primate scream - first look review", The Guardian, 1 July 2014:

Translations

Further reading

• trowel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Trowel in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Towler, Wolter

English

Etymology

From Middle English shovele, schovel, showell, shoule, shole (> English dialectal shoul, shool), from Old English scofl (“shovel”), from Proto-Germanic *skufl?, *sk?fl? (“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”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???v?l/
• Rhymes: -?v?l

Noun

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. 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. (US) A spade.
4. Short for shovel hat.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Fiji Hindi: sabbal
• ? Marshallese: jab??

Translations

Further reading

• shovel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb

shovel (third-person singular simple present shovels, present participle shoveling or shovelling, simple past and past participle shoveled or shovelled)

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.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To move with a shoveling motion.

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

Related terms

• shove

Translations

See also

• scoop

Anagrams

• hovels