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shoal 1 (shōl)
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n.
1. A shallow place in a body of water.
2. A sandy elevation of the bottom of a body of water, constituting a hazard to navigation; a sandbank or sandbar.
v. shoaled, shoal·ing, shoals
v.intr.
To become shallow: The river shoals suddenly here from eight to two fathoms.
v.tr.
1. To make shallow: The approach to the harbor was shoaled in the storm.
2. To come or sail into a shallower part of.
adj.
Having little depth; shallow.
[Middle English shold, shallow, shallows, from Old English sceald, shallow.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 
shoal 2 (shōl)
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n.
1. A large school of fish or other aquatic animals.
2. A large group; a crowd: a shoal of advisers.
intr.v. shoaled, shoal·ing, shoals
To come together in large numbers: The fish were shoaling.
[Probably Middle Low German or Middle Dutch schōle; see skel-1 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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