“Shaul” is a form of
shoal
/ʃəʊl/ adjective, noun, verb
Forms shoaler shoalest shoals shoaling shoaled sheld shole shoald shold shaul shawl shauld schald shaud shawd
- adjective (now rare) Shallow. “shoal water”
- noun A sandbank or sandbar creating a shallow.
- noun A shallow in a body of water.
- verb To arrive at a shallow (or less deep) area.
- verb (transitive) To cause a shallowing; to come to a more shallow part of.
- verb To become shallow. “The colour of the water shows where it shoals.”
- noun Any large number of persons or things. “Shoals of tourists”
- noun (collective) A large number of fish (or other sea creatures) of the same species swimming together.
- verb To collect in a shoal; to throng. “The fish shoaled about the place.”
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English schold, scholde, from Old English sċeald (“shallow”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *skalidaz, past participle of *skaljaną (“to go dry, dry up, become shallow”), from *skalaz (“parched, shallow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelh₁- (“to dry out”). Cognate with Low German Scholl (“shallow water”), German schal (“stale, flat, vapid”). Compare shallow.
1570, presumably from Middle English *schole (“school of fish”), from Old English sċeolu, sċolu (“troop or band of people, host, multitude, division of army, school of fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *skolu, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to divide, split, separate”).
Cognate with West Frisian skoal (“shoal”), Middle Low German schōle (“multitude, troop”), Dutch school (“shoal of fishes”). Doublet of school.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A great multitude assembled; a crowd; a throng; --said especially of fish; as, a shoal of bass. "Great shoals of people." Bacon.
- verb To assemble in a multitude; to throng; as, the fishes shoaled about the place. Chapman.
- adjective Having little depth; shallow; as, shoal water.
- noun A place where the water of a sea, lake, river, pond, etc., is shallow; a shallow.
Etymology [AS. scolu, sceolu, a company, multitude, crowd, akin to OS. skola; probably originally, a division, and akin to Icel. skilja to part, divide. See Skill, and cf. School. of fishes.]
Etymology [Cf. Shallow; or cf. G. scholle a clod, glebe, OHG. scollo, scolla, prob. akin to E. shoal a multitude.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shoal”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details