Shovel

A shovel is a tool for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore.

Most shovels are hand tools consisting of a broad blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are usually made of sheet steel or hard plastics and are very strong. Shovel handles are usually made of wood (especially specific varieties such as ash or maple) or glass-reinforced plastic (fibreglass).

Hand shovel blades made of sheet steel usually have a folded seam or hem at the back to make a socket for the handle. This fold also commonly provides extra rigidity to the blade. The handles are usually riveted in place. A T-piece is commonly fitted to the end of the handle to aid grip and control where the shovel is designed for moving soil and heavy materials. These designs can all be easily mass-produced.

The term shovel also applies to larger excavating machines called power shovels, which serve the same purpose—digging, lifting, and moving material. Modern power shovels descend from steam shovels. Loaders and excavators (such as backhoes) perform similar work, etically speaking, but are not classified as shovels emically.

Hand shovels have been adapted for many different tasks and environments. They can be optimized for a single task or designed as cross-over or compromise multitaskers. Examples are given under "Types".

Some usage prescriptions prescribe that the words "spade" and "shovel" should be held in contradistinction (piercing and digging [spade] versus scooping and moving [shovel]). Natural language does not widely follow these prescriptions; it more often treats "spade" and "scoop" as contradistinguished subsets under "shovel".

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