shoal
noun
- ridge-like type of coastal or oceanic landform
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L332977 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ʃəʊl/
adj
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.
- Shallow.
“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.”
noun
Etymology: 1570, presumably from Middle English *schole (“school of fish”), from Old English sċeolu, sċolu (“troop or band of people, host, multitude, division of army, school of fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *skolu, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to divide, split, separate”). Cognate with West Frisian skoal (“shoal”), Middle Low German schōle (“multitude, troop”), Dutch school (“shoal of fishes”). Doublet of school.
- Any large number of persons or things.
“Shoals of tourists”
“great shoals of people”
- 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.”
“He came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings.”
verb
Etymology: 1570, presumably from Middle English *schole (“school of fish”), from Old English sċeolu, sċolu (“troop or band of people, host, multitude, division of army, school of fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *skolu, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to divide, split, separate”). Cognate with West Frisian skoal (“shoal”), Middle Low German schōle (“multitude, troop”), Dutch school (“shoal of fishes”). Doublet of school.
- To collect in a shoal; to throng.
“The fish shoaled about the place.”