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trowel

UK/ˈtɹaʊ.əl/US/ˈtɹaʊ.əl/
nounB1+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,240 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: trowels

A trowel is a small hand spade for planting. A garden trowel, dig with the trowel, a bricklayer's trowel.

The garden kind is a scoop for planting bulbs and bedding. The bricklayer's is flat and diamond-shaped and is used for spreading mortar, which is a different tool under the same name. To lay it on with a trowel means to flatter grossly.

Mike Lupinacci · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of trowel

  1. 1nountrowelA small hand spade for planting.B1+

    “She dug small holes with a trowel and planted the tulip bulbs.”

trowel is a tool.

Where it comes from

Latin trulla is a diminutive of trua, a ladle or scoop, through Middle French truelle.

  1. Latin

    truella

  2. Middle French

    truelle

  3. Middle English

    trowell

  4. English, today

    trowel

Built from

  • trua · Latin — ladle

From Middle English trowell, trouel, truel, from Middle French truelle, from Latin truella, from Classical Latin trulla, the diminutive of trua (“ladle”). a doublet of trullo.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Trees & Flowers

Practise this word

trowel in the wild

  • The most distinctive characteristic of the goblin sharks is the long, trowel-shaped, beak-like snout, much longer than those of other sharks.

    Mitsukurinidae

  • The WHS 4" pointing trowel is well known as a standard excavation implement in British archaeology.

    William Hunt and Sons

  • The Marshalltown trowel is an excavation implement frequently used by archaeologists and bricklayers.

    Marshalltown trowel

  • The Marshalltown trowel is made of a single piece of metal.

    Marshalltown trowel

  • Dibbers come in a variety of designs including the straight dibber, T-handled dibber, trowel dibber, and L-shaped dibber.

    Dibber

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.