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''shoal'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250714003208-00-⌔

shoal - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

shoal (comparative shoaler, superlative shoalest)

  • (now rare) 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.1
    • ✤ 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.2

Noun

shoal (plural shoals)

  • A sandbank or sandbar creating a shallow.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bank, bar
    • ✤ ‘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.3
    • ✤ The god himself with ready trident stands,/And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands,/Then heaves them off the shoals.4
  • A shallow in a body of water.
    • ✤ 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.5
    • ✤ Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,/And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour.6

Verb

shoal (third-person singular simple present shoals, present participle shoaling, simple past and past participle shoaled)

  • To arrive at a shallow (or less deep) area.
  • (transitive) To cause a shallowing; to come to a more shallow part of.
    • ✤ Noting the rate at which she shoals her water - […]7
  • To become shallow.
    • ✤ The colour of the water shows where it shoals.

Noun

shoal (plural shoals)

  • Any large number of persons or things.
    • ✤ * Shoals of tourists*
    • ✤ * great shoals of people*8
  • (collective) A large number of fish (or other sea creatures) of the same species swimming together.
    • ✤ Beneath, a shoal of silver fishes glides.9
    • ✤ 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.10

Verb

shoal (third-person singular simple present shoals, present participle shoaling, simple past and past participle shoaled)

  • To collect in a shoal; to throng.
    • ✤ The fish shoaled about the place.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ʃəʊl/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -əʊl

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

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.

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, III.19: ↩

  2. 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island: ↩

  3. 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC: ↩

  4. 1697, Virgil, “Aeneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC: ↩

  5. 1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC: ↩

  6. 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]: ↩

  7. 1859, Matthew Fontaine Maury, Explanations and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and Current Charts: ↩

  8. 1625, Francis[Bacon], “Of Vicissitude of Things”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC: ↩

  9. c. 1661, Edmund Waller, On St. James’s Park ↩

  10. 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick: ↩

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