Etymograph

English

shoal

Shoal comes from Middle English schold ‘Shallow’, and goes back to Old English sċeald.

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150sċeald‘shallow’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500schold‘Shallow’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1613shoal

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150sċeald‘shallow’
  2. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500schold‘Shallow’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1613shoal

Earliest quotation: 1613, William Shakespeare, The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight: “Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory, /…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelh₁- ‘to dry out’

skeleton, shallow, sclerosis, sclera, 5 more

Another origin of shoal

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*(s)kelH-‘to divide, split, separate’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*skolureconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150sċeolu‘troop or band of people, host, multitude, division of army, school of fish’
  4. Englishtodayshoal

Today it means

adj Shallow.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Old English sċeald / shoal

Shirt and support for this word