shovel

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A tool with a handle and a broad scoop or blade for digging and moving material, such as dirt or snow.
2. n. A large mechanical device or vehicle for heavy digging or excavation.
3. n. The amount that a shovel can hold; a shovelful: One shovel of dirt.
4. v. To move or remove with a shovel.
5. v. To make with a shovel: shoveled a path through the snow.
6. v. To convey or throw in a rough or hasty way, as if with a shovel: He shoveled the food into his mouth.
7. v. To clear or excavate with or as if with a shovel: shoveling off the driveway after the snowstorm; shovels out the hall closet once a year.
8. v. To dig or work with a shovel.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument consisting of a broad scoop or concave blade with a handle, used for taking up and removing loose substances, as coal, sand, earth, gravel, corn, coin, etc. The most common form of shovel is that used for removing loose earth, coal, or the like; it is made of thin iron, the blade square and flat, with low sides nearly at right angles with it, and a wooden handle somewhat curved, about two feet six inches in length, and terminating in a bow-handle. See fire-shovel.
2. n. A shovel-hat.
3. n. In zoology, a formation suggesting a shovel. See cuts under paddle-fish and shoveler.
4. n. See the quotation.
5. To take up and move with a shovel.
6. To move or throw in large quantities, hastily and clumsily, as if with a shovel: as, to shovel food into the mouth with a knife.
7. To cover up with earth by means of a spade or shovel.
8. To use a shovel: as, to shovel for one's living.
9. n. Same as shoveler.
10. An obsolete form of shuffle.
11. n. The blade of any plow or cultivator exclusive of those having shares and mold-boards. Not only shovel-like blades but narrow vertical forms and horizontal scrapers are sometimes included. See scalp, n., 7; scooter, 3; scrape, 7; and entries below.

Wiktionary

1. n. A hand tool with a handle, used for moving portions of material such as earth, snow, and grain from one place to another, with some forms also used for digging. Not to be confused with a spade, which is designed solely for small-scale digging and incidental tasks such as chopping of small roots.
2. n. US A spade.
3. v. To move materials with a shovel.
4. v. transitive, figuratively To move with a shoveling motion.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An implement consisting of a broad scoop, or more or less hollow blade, with a handle, used for lifting and throwing earth, coal, grain, or other loose substances.
2. v. To take up and throw with a shovel.
3. v. To gather up as with a shovel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a hand tool for lifting loose material; consists of a curved container or scoop and a handle
2. n. a machine for excavating
3. v. dig with or as if with a shovel
4. n. the quantity a shovel can hold
5. n. a fire iron consisting of a small shovel used to scoop coals or ashes in a fireplace