Shovel with wide blade - especially appropriate for lifting snow or coal

A shovel is a tool for lifting and moving loose material such as coal, gravel, snow, soil, or sand. It is usually a hand tool consisting of a broad blade with edges or sides that is fixed to a medium-length handle. The term "shovel" is also applied to larger excavating machines, such as steam shovels, which are designed for the same purpose—lifting and moving material, see Loader (equipment). Image File history File linksMetadata Shovel_black. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Shovel_black. ... A modern hammer is directly descended from ancient hand tools A tool or device is a piece of equipment which typically provides a mechanical advantage in accomplishing a physical task, or provides an ability that is not naturally available to the user of a tool. ... Coal Coal (IPA: ) is a fossil fuel formed in swamp ecosystems where plant remains were saved by water and mud from oxidization and biodegradation. ... Gravel being unloaded from a barge Gravel is rock that is of a certain grain size range. ... Animation of snowcover changing with the seasons Trees covered with snow Snow covering a leaf. ... Loess field in Germany Surface-water-gley developed in glacial till, Northern Ireland Technically, soil forms the pedosphere: the interface between the lithosphere (rocky part of the planet) and the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. ... Patterns in the sand Sand is a granular material made up of fine rock particles. ... A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. ... A Volvo L120E front loader. ...

The shovel (or spade) is made of steel, meaning that it is heavy, the handle being made of steel or iron (sometimes even wood). This particular garden tool is used for many purposes on the farm.

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 tools to perform multiple tasks, for example:

Military entrenching tool manufactured by Fiskars for the USMC

• A coal shovel typically has a wide, flat blade with steeply turned sides, a flat face and a short D-shaped handle.

• A snowshovel often has a very wide sideless blade that curves upward attached to a long, straight handle. It is designed as much for pushing the snow as for lifting it. The blade can be metal or plastic, but the latter has been used to offer a lighter tool.

• A spade is designed primarily for breaking up ("spading") clumps of soil. A spade usually has a point and is designed to be pushed into the soil with a foot. Spade blades usually have a rounded face without sharply upturned sides.

• A Trench shovel is long and narrow, used for digging fairly deep, but narrow trenches, or post-holes.

• A gardening trowel is a small single-hand implement for breaking up clumps in soil. Gardening trowels typically have strong, narrow blades with sharp points.

• An entrenching tool is a collapsible and/or compact shovel designed for the military. It may have a spade-like point with sharpened or even serrated edges for secondary use as an axe or saw, respectively. Some militaries of the world (most notably units of the Soviet Union) train their servicemen to use entrenching shovel as a makeshift close combat weapon. This tactic has been widely used in the battlefields of World War II.

Toy shovels are common playthings on sandy beaches or in sandboxes. Image File history File linksMetadata USMC_ETool. ... Fiskars Corporation is a metal and consumer brands company founded in 1649 in Fiskars bruk, today Fiskars ruukki in the municipality of Pohja, Finland, located about 100 kilometres west of Helsinki along the ancient mainroad from Turku to Viipuri. ... United States Marine Corps Emblem The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is the second smallest of the five branches of the United States armed forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve Marines as of 2002. ... Rusty spade small spade for clay soil; the other one for sandy soil and loamy soil A spade is a tool fit for digging, or something resembling that. ... A gardening trowel Trowel used by the Hon. ... Shovel with wide blade - especially appropriate for lifting snow or coal A shovel is a tool for lifting and moving loose material such as coal, gravel, snow, dirt, or sand. ... Axe For other uses, see Axe (disambiguation). ... Close Combat is the name of a series of tactical real-time (RTT) computer games by Atomic Games, as well as a first-person shooter by Destineer Games. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... A teddy bear A toy is an object used in play. ... Romeo and Juliet by Ford Madox Brown A play, written by a playwright, or dramatist, is a form of literature, almost always consisting of dialog between characters, and intended for performance rather than reading. ... Ninety Mile Beach Australia. ... Sandpit with toy tools used by children to play in sand A small sandbox shaped like a boat made for children A childrens sandpit A sandpit (in British English/Australian English; in American English, to denote an open pit sand mine) or sandbox (American English) is a low, wide...

The traffic signs warning of a Work zone or Construction site generally show a person using a shovel. Unused traffic signs in Austria Most countries post signage, known as traffic signs or road signs, at the side of roads to impart information to road users. ...

Slang use: Shovel: 1965-1980 Harley Davidson Engine Design called so by the "Shovel" shaped rocker boxes on the engine heads. Also called Shovelhead Engines. The Harley-Davidson, Inc. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Shovels and spades

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... The Wikimedia Commons (also called Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ...

See also

• Spade