Shoving

How to spell shoving

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shoving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shoving mean?

1. verbPushing something or someone roughly or forcefully, often with the hands or body.

Shoving in a sentence

• The crowd kept shoving toward the exit as the alarm sounded.

• He was shoving boxes into the back of the van before the rain started.

Where does shoving come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'shove', which comes from the Old English scufan, meaning 'to push, thrust, or shove away'. That verb belonged to a wide Germanic family, with close relatives in Old Norse skufa and modern German schieben, all carrying the basic idea of forcing something forward by pressure. The everyday noun 'shovel' shares this same root, since a shovel is literally a tool for shoving earth aside. For centuries 'shove' kept its blunt, physical sense of pushing roughly against a person or object, and that meaning survives almost unchanged today. The -ing form follows the ordinary English rule that the silent e at the end of 'shove' is dropped before the suffix is added, which is exactly the small spelling trap to watch.

How the word is built

• shove (push, thrust)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix; the silent e of 'shove' is dropped before -ing)