shoal
1a place where a sea, river, or other body of water is shallow: The clams and mussels gathered from these shoals are the best you’ll ever find.
a sandbank or sandbar in the bed of a body of water, especially one that is exposed above the surface of the water at low tide.
of little depth, as water; shallow: The first thing these newcomers do is buy a boat and promptly get stuck in the shoal waters, which they know nothing about.
to become shallow or more shallow: The river significantly shoals between the old stone bridge and the bend at Tuttle’s Crossing.
to cause to become shallow: Shoaling the approach has effectively kept the larger vessels out of our small harbor.
Nautical. to sail so as to lessen the depth of (the water under a vessel).
Origin of shoal
1Other words for shoal
Words Nearby shoal
Other definitions for shoal (2 of 2)
any large number of persons or things.
a school of fish: a shoal of herring;a shoal of mackerel.
to collect in a shoal; throng.
Origin of shoal
2Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use shoal in a sentence
Its long-recorded history, which dates back to a ninth-century Icelandic saga and its mapping by Portuguese sailors in the 1500s, is littered with accounts of deadly shipwrecks on the island’s treacherous shoals.
Sable Island’s famous wild horses are at the heart of a conservation controversy | Moira Donovan / Hakai Magazine | August 1, 2022 | Popular-ScienceExpect lots of shoals and waves, with long eddies between rapids.
Alter finds little evidence of open bigotry in his past, but Carter usually managed to navigate the perilous shoals of racial politics in the Deep South by portage — avoiding them as best he could.
The case for Jimmy Carter as a ‘consequential’ president | Russell L. Riley | December 4, 2020 | Washington PostOff the entrance is a high rocky islet, the Nobby, within which the channel is shoal and dangerous to pass.
The continuation of the shoal between the islands and Point Lookout was not clearly ascertained.
At a short quarter of a mile from the point is a rocky shoal of small size, between which and the shore there is deep water.
Some shoal marks on the water were observed opposite these islands, but their existence was not ascertained.
At the bottom of Knocker's Bay is a shoal mangrove opening, of no importance.
British Dictionary definitions for shoal (1 of 2)
/ (ʃəʊl) /
a stretch of shallow water
a sandbank or rocky area in a stretch of water, esp one that is visible at low water
to make or become shallow
(intr) nautical to sail into shallower water
a less common word for shallow
nautical (of the draught of a vessel) drawing little water
Origin of shoal
1Derived forms of shoal
- shoaliness, noun
British Dictionary definitions for shoal (2 of 2)
/ (ʃəʊl) /
a large group of certain aquatic animals, esp fish
a large group of people or things
(intr) to collect together in such a group
Origin of shoal
2Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for shoal
[ shōl ]
A submerged mound or ridge of sediment in a body of shallow water.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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