trowel.
A mason’s tool, used in spreading and dressing mortar, and breaking bricks to shape them.
Meaning & usage
A mason’s tool, used in spreading and dressing mortar, and breaking bricks to shape them.
A gardener’s tool, shaped like a scoop, used in taking up plants, stirring soil etc.
I need to dig a hole for these begonias; would you pass me that trowel?
A tool used for smoothing a mold.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English trowell, trouel, truel, from Middle French truelle, from Late Latin truella, from Classical Latin trulla, the diminutive of trua (“ladle”). Doublet of trullo.
To apply (a substance) with a trowel.
He troweled the coarse mix with a twist, leaving a pattern of arcs.
To pass over with a trowel.
To apply something heavily or unsubtly.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English trowell, trouel, truel, from Middle French truelle, from Late Latin truella, from Classical Latin trulla, the diminutive of trua (“ladle”). Doublet of trullo.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.