2 meanings
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1 —as in:
run aground on a shoal
Definition
an area of shallow water — especially a navigation hazard, and often caused by a deposit of sand (sandbank)- The rocks, shoals, and currents make it a treacherous journey.
shoals = sandbanks or other stretches of shallow water
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- Her political career crashed on the shoals of unemployment and inflation.
- The crew of the river boat used poles to avoid rocks, shoals, and sandbars.
- Away to the northward, out to sea, ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would never let a ship come within six miles of the beach,Rudyard Kipling -- The Jungle Book
- One by one, I laid out the dangers he must avoid, the shoals, the barbarous islands, the Sirens, those birds with women's heads who lure men to their death with song.Madeline Miller -- Circe
- It is nice at high water, but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there.Bram Stoker -- Dracula
- "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,Mark Twain -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than a mile deepErnest Hemingway -- The Old Man and the Sea
- At about nine o'clock next morning three lonely figures might have been seen picking their way across the Shribble by the shoals and stepping-stones.C.S. Lewis -- The Silver Chair
- 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,Sarah Jewett -- A White Heron
shoals = (used figuratively) a sandbank or other stretch of shallow water (that is dangerous to ships)
shoals = sandbanks or other stretches of shallow water
shoals = stretches of shallow water
shoals = areas of shallow water
shoals = becomes shallow
shoal = shallow
shoal = shallower part
shoals = areas of shallow water
shoal = stretch of shallow water
2 —as in:
shoal of tuna
Definition
a large group of fish swimming together- The spotter plane found a shoal of tuna.
shoal = large group of fish
Other Uses (with this meaning)
- We spotted a shoal of mackerel.
- 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.Rudyard Kipling -- The Jungle Book
shoal = large group of fish
shoal = large group (of fish)
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