Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Showing results for trowel. Search instead for trowele.
Definitions

trowel

[trou-uhl] / ˈtraʊ əl /


NOUN
shovel
Synonyms
STRONG


VERB
shovel
Synonyms


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Items available included secateurs, a builder's trowel and even left-handed playing cards.

From BBC Jul. 29, 2026

We used a hand trowel to collect samples in Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu in late March.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 24, 2025

This is after all a horror picture, and Stevenson layers on the horror tropes with a trowel, so much so that the movie descends into wretched excessiveness.

From Seattle Times Apr. 5, 2024

The team of researchers used a trowel to shave 1 to 2 centimeters of snow from the surface of 130 polar bear prints left near Alaska’s North Slope.

From Science Magazine Dec. 5, 2023

Then he pulled a jug of water, a small bag of patching cement, a trowel, and a plastic tray from the tar pail.

From "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli

LUMEZI, Zambia—Three-year-old Dickson Ngwira was deep into his afternoon nap when half a dozen elephants, using trunks as trowels, gouged a five-foot-wide hole in the brick wall near his bed.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 30, 2026

Professor Cobb pointed out that "Archaeologists must have their hands free while recording data, since we need to hold our trowels and brushes while digging."

From Science Daily Nov. 21, 2024

That’s in no more than half an hour of walking around, without trowels and paintbrushes.

From Science Magazine Nov. 30, 2023

They are seen carefully inspecting ash and other charred debris on the floor with trowels and removing personal items from a sieve.

From BBC Nov. 7, 2023

I grab a bunch of gloves and some spades and trowels and gesture for the garden-duty group to join me.

From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed

Or the installers might have troweled on a floor-leveling compound but failed to smooth it.

From Washington Post Jan. 16, 2022

At other times he carved into the layers of paint he had troweled on, like mortar between bricks or frosting on cakes.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 13, 2017

The plaster was troweled directly onto the brick walls, making removal difficult.

From Washington Post Aug. 1, 2016

So thickly is this dysfunctional dynamic troweled on to the opening episodes that it not only feels fake, but oppressive.

From The Guardian Nov. 2, 2015

He mixed the cement and troweled over the hole.

From "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli

Paul senses the irony is being rather trowelled on, but it's now too late.

From The Guardian Apr. 28, 2013

The ghost of the abstract expressionist Clyfford Still and his sooty trowelled surfaces is intimated in a painting of a slabby night-time wall, illuminated by a single yellow-lit window.

From The Guardian Jul. 7, 2010

An author may sometimes think he is fulsomely praised and may even feel a sort of disgust for the slab adulation trowelled upon him, but his admirer need not fear being accused of insincerity.

From Imaginary Interviews by Howells, William Dean

Still Lady Linden prodded and trowelled at the neat bed, still she demanded occasional help from the patient Curtis; and now came a man, breathless and coatless, rushing across the lawn.

From The Imaginary Marriage by Cooper, Henry St. John

The walls were given a coat of plaster and a coat of rough-cast, which was gently trowelled over to smooth the surface slightly.

From Cottage Building in Cob, Pisé, Chalk and Clay a Renaissance (2nd edition) by Williams-Ellis, Clough

You’re basically painting or troweling on a thin layer of limestone.

From Seattle Times Feb. 3, 2022

Immediately, this dynamo of energy fell in love with the slow, methodical process of mixing mortar, troweling, and stacking bricks.

From Salon Oct. 1, 2019

Working in a hot kitchen, troweling french fries into paper bags, isn’t easy, but a lot of people would consider it easier than helping an adult out of bed and to the toilet.

From Washington Times Jan. 2, 2019

In one song near the end, “S/word and Leviathan,” he protects his right to go loud, constructing a big, echoey pattern played on a lute, with faraway vocals, then troweling electric guitar on top.

From New York Times Feb. 20, 2011

Laborers carried the mortar down the ladders to the masons who would lay the stones on top of each other, troweling a layer of mortar between each stone and each layer of stones.

From "Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction" by David Macaulay

The Italian version of As Tears Go By has real value to Stones fans, as it has a substantially different arrangement to their orginal English-language recording, trowelling on the medieval knight-in-shining-armour Lady Jane shtick.

From The Guardian Mar. 10, 2011

Much depends upon the workmen giving it sufficient labour, and trowelling it down.

From The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families by Eaton, Mary, fl. 1823-1849

No matter that the larva will perish by this untimely trowelling: the moment has come to wall up the door; the door is walled up.

From The Mason-Bees by Teixeira de Mattos, Alexander




Vocabulary lists containing trowel


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training