steam shovel

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   An excavating machine designed to effect a shovelling action through steam power.

   • The construction of the Ealing & South Harrow proceeded very slowly during the winter of 1898-9 but by July most of the bridges had been built and the stations started. Two steam shovels, six locomotives, and 325 men were employed.
2. 2

   Any excavating machine of similar design, no matter how powered.

3. 3

   To excavate (a place, or something from a place) using a steam shovel.

   • [H]ere in America there are mountains of oil rock which can be blasted and steam-shoveled and transported by gravity to great retorts which will turn out oil and fertilizer in limitless quantities.
   • Considerable copper ore, steam-shoveled from Sacramento Hill and piled at Bisbee, was of smelting and milling grade, and some of it was put on the dump for heap leaching.
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To operate a steam shovel.

      • I have never had any experience with steam shoveling.
      • [I]n the tumultuous rootings of a potato field, in which hogs had long foraged and steam-shoveled, there were woodcock, squatting sedately and boring assiduously in the soft brown loam.
      • They're steam shoveling there with this great ugly nose plowing out a hole and throwing the dirt up on the bank or in trucks to haul away.

The neighborhood

• neighbormechanical shovel
• neighborexcavator