Word.ws English Dictionary

shovel test

shovel test noun: an excavation unit of small extent and shallow depth, made quickly with a shovel or trowel to determine whether archeologically significant material is present below the ground surface.

Noun

shovel test (plural shovel tests)

  1. An excavation unit of small extent and shallow depth, made quickly with a shovel or trowel to determine whether archeologically significant material is present below the ground surface.
    • A single shovel test was all we needed to show the site's importance.

Verb

shovel test (third-person singular simple present shovel tests, present participle shovel testing, simple past and past participle shovel tested)

  1. To examine a site or area using one or more small excavation units.
    • They were contracted to shovel test only within the proposed pipeline's right of way.

Forms of shovel test

Noun
pluralshovel tests
Verb
third-person singular presentshovel tests
present participleshovel testing
past participleshovel tested
pastshovel tested

Questions about shovel test

What does shovel test mean?
Shovel test means an excavation unit of small extent and shallow depth, made quickly with a shovel or trowel to determine whether archeologically significant material is present below the ground surface.
What part of speech is shovel test?
Shovel test can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of shovel test?
The plural of shovel test is shovel tests.

Words near shovel test in the dictionary

  1. shovel
  2. shovel hat
  3. shovel hats
  4. shovel out
  5. shovel ready
  6. shovel test
  7. shovel tests
  8. shovel up
  9. shovel-full
  10. shovel-handed
  11. shovel-nosed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shovel test (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “shovel test.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shovel_test. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.