shoal
/ʃəʊl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.93 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any large number of persons or things.
Example Sentences
- "shoal water"
- "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."
- "All told, we had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in."
- "'Twas early June, the new grass was flourishing everywheres, the posies in the yard—peonies and such—in full bloom, the sun was shining, and the water of the bay was blue, with light green streaks where the shoal showed."
- "The god himself with ready trident stands, / And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands, / Then heaves them off the shoals."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English schold, scholde, from Old English sċeald (“shallow”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *skalidaz, past participle of *skaljaną (“to go dry, dry up, become shallow”), from *skalaz (“parched, shallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelh₁- (“to dry out”). Cognate with Low German Scholl (“shallow water”), German schal (“stale, flat, vapid”). Compare shallow.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *(s)kelh₁-, schold, sċeald, *skalidaz, sċeolu, *skolu
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ʃəʊl/
Usage
Inflected Forms
shoaler (comparative)
shoalest (superlative)
sheld (alternative, dialectal)
shole (alternative, dialectal)
shoald (alternative, dialectal)
shold (alternative, dialectal)
shaul (alternative, Scotland)
shawl (alternative, Scotland)
shauld (alternative, Scotland)
schald (alternative, Scotland)
shaud (alternative, Scotland)
shawd (alternative, Scotland)