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Glite Dictionary
hand shovel

hand shovel

2.3
A small tool like a mini spade you hold in one hand to dig or move dirt
  • noun
translation icon : pala de mano
  • The gardener used a hand shovel to plant flowers in the small beds.

Examples

  • Back in those days, or even earlier, miners would use hand shovels or mattocks, in a coal port, for instance.

    Blog text (9)

  • So she was filling holes back in with a small hand shovel when Will's car drove slowly up the road, accompanied by the run. She stood up slowly, her hand on the ache in her back.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • With a hand shovel, she dug a hole to bury the pet's ashes.

  • He carefully filled the wheelbarrow using a hand shovel to scoop up the dirt.

Synonyms

shovel
vshand shovel
142 1.0

A tool with a wide blade and handle for digging and moving soil or snow

is smaller and intended for one-hand use with small quantities
spade
vshand shovel
25 1.0

A tool with a flat blade and long handle for digging

is for one-hand work and moving small amounts, not long-handle digging
coal shovel
vshand shovel
1 2.4

A hand-held metal tool that you use to move coal into or out of a fire

is smaller and for one-hand digging or moving only small amounts

How Portable

trowel
10 4.8
hand shovel
2.3
shovel
142 1.0

Surface Forms

hand shovel singular
hand shovels plural

Morphology

hand + shovel

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'hand' (indicating use or small size) with 'shovel' (a digging tool); it denotes a shovel intended to be used with one hand. This noun–noun compounding pattern is regular in English and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.

Etymology

Hand shovel comes from the simple image of a shovel you hold in your hand, a small tool for digging in tight spaces. So, it means 'a small shovel you use with one hand'.