shoveler
noun
Forms shovelers shoveller
- noun One who, or that which, shovels.
- noun Any of four species of dabbling duck, in the genus Anas, with distinctive spatulate bills.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English schoveler, equivalent to shovel + -er.
From Middle English shoulere, shovellewre, shovelere, schoueler, alteration of earlier schovelerd, schulerde, schevelard (“shovelard”), from schovel (“shovel”), perhaps influenced by malard (“mallard”), on model of Middle Dutch lepelaar (“spoonbill”), with Middle English -ard replacing -aar and later itself replaced by Middle English -er, but not completely certain. Probably at least influenced by the shape of the bill and its feeding behavior.
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who, or that which, shovels.
- noun A river duck (Spatula clypeata), native of Europe and America.
Etymology [Also shoveller.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shoveler”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details