Shove
verbTo push something or someone roughly or with force.
How to spell shove
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce shove
What does shove mean?
- verbTo push something or someone roughly or with force.
- nounA strong or rough push.
Shove in a sentence
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verb
He tried to shove the heavy wardrobe across the room.
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noun
One firm shove sent the stalled car rolling forward.
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verb
The commuters began to shove their way onto the crowded train.
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noun
She gave the stuck drawer a sharp shove to close it.
Where does shove come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Shove comes from the Old English verb scūfan, which meant simply 'to push, thrust, or drive forward'. It belongs to the same family of Germanic words as the Dutch schuiven and the German schieben, all carrying the basic idea of pushing something away. The early sense survives almost unchanged today, although shove now usually suggests a rougher or more impatient push than its polite cousin. The related noun and the everyday phrase 'shove off' both grew naturally out of this old root. The spelling can mislead because the cluster looks as though it should rhyme with 'cove' or 'stove', yet the vowel is the short 'uh' sound, a small trap left over from how Middle English vowels shifted while the spelling stayed put.
How the word is built
- shove (from Old English scūfan: to push, thrust)
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