Sample Sentences for
shoal
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

shoal as in:  run aground on a shoal

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    The crew of the river boat used poles to avoid rocks, shoals, and sandbars.
    shoals = sandbanks or other stretches of shallow water
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    dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than a mile deep  (source)
    shoal = shallower part
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    Then he jumped like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about in the shoal water and browsing on the heavy fringes of the weeds.  (source)
    shoal = shallow water
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    I walked down into the shoals.  (source)
    shoals = areas of shallow water
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    "These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds--regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest middling easy." It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal water now, so I went right along,  (source)
    shoal = shallow
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    The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness.†  (source)
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    At that point of the lake the water shoaled regularly.†  (source)
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    Near the harbor's southern slope, however, lay a channel of treacherous shoals, studded here and there with great boulders that still bore the scars of ancient shipwrecks, and as a consequence this southern part of the harbor was always quite still.  (source)
    shoals = areas of shallow water that are a navigation hazard
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    The cow stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water,  (source)
    shoal = stretch of shallow water
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    The marsh was guarded by a torn shoreline, labeled by early explorers as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" because riptides, furious winds, and shallow shoals wrecked ships like paper hats along what would become the North Carolina coast.  (source)
    shoals = areas of shallow water that are a navigation hazard
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    Reared in Charleston, he knew every inlet, creek, shoal and rock of the Carolina coast near that port, and he was equally at home in the waters around Wilmington.†  (source)
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    The great heat, a nearby shallow run, the time in the sun, and the pools and shoals where it had been trapped made the water warm.  (source)
    shoals = areas of shallow water
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    We can cross right down yonder off of that shoal, John Grady said.†  (source)
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shoal as in:  shoal of tuna

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The spotter plane found a shoal of tuna.
shoal = large group of fish
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    We spotted a shoal of mackerel.
    shoal = large group (of fish)
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    Pale green flags drooped from the squat corner towers, each emblazoned with a shoal of silvery fish.  (source)
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    This time he went westward, because he had fallen on the trail of a great shoal of halibut, and he needed at least one hundred pounds of fish a day to keep him in good condition.  (source)
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Show 6 more with 2 word variations
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    The few people already in the square moved quickly and aimlessly like a startled shoal of fish.  (source)
    shoal = large group
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    I'd been knocked reeling by the stress of navigating one of the most crowded stores in Manhattan on a Friday close to Christmas: elevators packed, stairwells packed, flowing with shoals of tourists,  (source)
    shoals = large groups
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    The mopeds parted like fish in a giant shoal.  (source)
    shoal = group (swimming together)
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    In the silence, broken only by the exaggerated oosh shoo of my own breath, I watched shoals of tiny iridescent fish, and larger black-and-white fish, that stared at me with blank, inquisitive faces, and gently swaying anemones filtering the gentle currents of their tiny, unseen haul.  (source)
    shoals = large groups of fish
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    Words float from your tongue like shoals of flapping minnows, like flocks of breathlessh hummingbirds, like rivers of writhing shnakes.  (source)
    shoals = large groups (of fish)
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    Shoals of herring and great codfish swam between the tall arched windows.  (source)
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