How to Use shoal in a Sentence

shoal

noun
  • Strutting along the muddy shoal, these rangy punks of the bird world were white, with only a hint of pink.
    — Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2022
  • Do the birds in a flock, or the fish in a shoal, just enjoy each other's company?
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 23 July 2012
  • It was attacked by Lakota Sioux while the crew worked the boat off the shoal.
    — Washington Post, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The shoals attract diving gannets and orcas.
    — David Greig september 15, Literary Hub, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Parrotfish, angelfish, and thick shoals of bluestripe snappers colored the reef.
    — Betsy Andrews, Condé Nast Traveler, 28 Oct. 2025
  • For one thing, spring flooding was tamer than usual, which means less river sediment pushed into new shoals.
    — USA TODAY, 10 Sep. 2023
  • The Warren Sawyer struck a shoal near the island and ran aground on its south shore, Schwanfelder said.
    — Shannon Larson, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Feb. 2023
  • The debris appears as a large cloud of dirty water seen beyond the shoals off Montego Bay.
    — Avery Schmitz, CNN Money, 30 Oct. 2025
  • With its striking take on Earth’s next chapter, the novel avoids the shoals of postapocalyptic cliché.
    — Monitor Reviewers, Christian Science Monitor, 18 Sep. 2025
  • The little sluiceways through the shoals were only a few inches deep, so the coontail moss was also that much closer to the surface.
    — Bryan Hendricks, Arkansas Online, 15 Feb. 2026
  • Some experts say the animal may have lost its way while swimming after a shoal of herring or during migration.
    — ABC News, 16 Apr. 2026
  • Some experts say the animal may have lost its way while swimming after a shoal of herring or during migration.
    — ABC News, 20 Apr. 2026
  • However, the shoal remains hazardous, and the first week of January will bring some of the lowest tides of the year.
    — Phil Diehl, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 Dec. 2025
  • Cairo points out the areas where the most trout can be found—where the water foams up, or the dark shadow where a shallow shoal drops off into a deeper channel.
    — Meredith Erickson, Saveur, 29 Apr. 2019
  • Some of the smaller boats were seen inside the shoal, and several fast craft appeared to be outfitted with new heavy weapons, the statement said.
    — Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Aug. 2025
  • The island is surrounded by reefs and shoals, and is home to several historical sites, parks and viewpoints.
    — Kerry Breen, CBS News, 3 Apr. 2026
  • In the coastal waters of Laguna, Brazil, a shoal of mullet is in serious trouble.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 1 May 2012
  • In a community, a herd or a shoal, the other individuals around you affect how you're perceived.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2011
  • At least eight of the dead were children who perished after a wooden boat broke up in stormy seas on the shoals off the Calabrian coast Sunday.
    — Paolo Santalucia and Luigi Navarra, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Onshore, Cheap seemed doomed, unable to navigate past life’s unexpected shoals.
    — David Grann, The New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2023
  • Our empathy, and curiosity, keep crashing up against the rocky shoals of enervation.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 31 Jan. 2024
  • Next, Reddon focused on individuals who were in the middle of their shoal’s pecking order.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 10 Oct. 2012
  • There, just rising over a mountain peak was the star cluster Pleiades — the Seven Sisters — a stunning shoal of sapphires.
    — Peter M. Leschak, Star Tribune, 15 May 2021
  • Waters off the point are treacherous, including colliding currents, shoals and sandbars.
    — Mark Price, Charlotte Observer, 22 Jan. 2026
  • The actions of Chinese vessels in the shoal this week also resulted in a collision of two of them, Manila said, the first such known in the area.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Despite the clear demonstration of his managerial prowess and unsurpassed technical know-how, his career hit rocky shoals.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 25 Oct. 2023
  • In this activity, a group of whales cooperatively herd fish into a small volume of water where the shoal can be easily consumed.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 5 Jan. 2024
  • Footage released by the Philippines coast guard showed Chinese units, some armed, placing nets in the water and fast boats operating inside the shoal itself.
    — Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 26 Aug. 2025
  • McSorley, fatigued and with his radars on the blink, may have unwittingly bottomed out the boat on a shoal, damaging the plating underneath.
    — Kevin Duchschere, Boston Herald, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Simmering tension over the shoal has led to diplomatic disputes in recent years, but no incidents have escalated into armed conflict there.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 16 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shoal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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