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shoal

Pronunciation: /ʃəʊl/

The English word “shoal” has 9 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Shallow.

noun

  1. A sandbank or sandbar creating a shallow.
  2. A shallow in a body of water.
  3. Any large number of persons or things.
  4. A large number of fish (or other sea creatures) of the same species swimming together.

verb

  1. To arrive at a shallow (or less deep) area.
  2. To cause a shallowing; to come to a more shallow part of.
  3. To become shallow.
  4. To collect in a shoal; to throng.

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.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.