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1A small handheld tool with a flat, pointed blade, used to apply and spread mortar or plaster.
‘a pointing trowel’
‘Use a putty knife or a small notched trowel to apply adhesive to the back of the tile - your tile dealer can help you with the right adhesive for your situation - and press the tile into place.’
‘Wet the joint and then apply new mortar into the joint with a small masonry trowel or putty knife.’
‘In some cases an additional texture coat of finish material is applied over the initial finish coat and tooled with a trowel or other tool.’
‘Using a trowel, apply plaster over the hole covering the patch and filling the entire hole.’
‘It's a veritable hardware store of saw blades, pickaxe blades, trowels and awls.’
‘Once the tile is flexible, apply adhesive to the floor with a notched trowel and drop the tile into place.’
‘Crevice trowels have the narrowest blades, about 1 1/4 inches wide.’
‘Remove the bricks and use a pointed trowel to apply mortar to the concrete base, but do not go beyond the chalk lines.’
‘Pour the liquid latex into the sand and cement mixture and mix it completely with a trowel or other tool.’
‘Plasters and stuccos are spread by hand or trowel, or sprayed on with a mechanical sprayer or pump.’
‘Using your chalk line as a guide, spread the mortar with a notched trowel over a 2x5-foot section of the floor.’
‘Technically, you are supposed to spread the adhesive with a notched trowel.’
‘As you lay the bricks, use the edge of the trowel to cut off excess mortar; this can be returned to the mortarboard.’
‘Spread the adhesives on the wall using the flat side of the trowel.’
‘Using a notched trowel, spread the adhesive over one square area, not going over the reference lines of that area.’
‘The most common finish for interiors has a smooth finish created by running a flat trowel over the top.’
‘For shallow or small repairs, use a wide putty knife or trowel to apply a vinyl patching compound in multiple layers as directed by the maker.’
‘Using a notched trowel and working in small sections, spread 1/4 inch of grout or tile adhesive on the table surface.’
‘Use a small trowel to spread plaster onto a piece of muslin.’
‘The technique is very simple, use a rubber faced trowel to spread the grout and a cotton cloth to clean the excess grout from the tiles afterwards.’
2A small handheld tool with a curved scoop for lifting plants or earth.
‘a garden trowel’
‘Hand-weed with a trowel tip or soil knife, making sure to get the roots, which are especially irksome in dry soil.’
‘Within five minutes the computer was inside my briefcase, and I was walking out to the vegetable garden with a trowel in my hand and a grin on my face.’
‘Use a trowel or dibber to make a hole twice their size and plant with the flat base at the bottom.’
‘As a test, check soil moisture just before the system is due to come on by using a soil probe or digging down 3 to 6 inches (depending on size of plant) with a trowel.’
‘As you slide out the trowel, push any scattered soil back into the hole, then water the area to settle the soil.’
‘The gardener has done magnificent work - and it seems strange to use that term for the old scientist who is equally at home with his hydroponics and gene-fixing as with fertilisers and a trowel.’
‘Chris sighed and kept on digging his trowel into the earth.’
‘Use a small trowel or soil knife to dig a hole slightly larger than the herb's pot and collect the soil in a bucket.’
‘When visiting, bring a pot or two of tulips and a trowel.’
‘Dig into the top 2 to 3 inches of soil with a trowel.’
‘Probably one of the most-used small tools is the trowel, which is ideal for digging small holes for planting and transplanting annuals, vegetables and other smaller plants.’
‘In the car, I keep small pots and a trowel in a cardboard box and I did dig some native plants from wet ditches for bog plants.’
‘Julia continues to dig deeper with a small shovel, a garden trowel.’
‘Remove a core of soil from the lawn with a trowel or shovel and measure the depth of the thatch, which is the layer of dead grass above the soil line.’
‘If this happens, loosen the soil with a trowel and replant the bulb, taking care not to damage the roots.’
‘To help you determine planting depths and plant spacing, garden trowels often come with measurements right on the metal.’
‘Imagine being able to go outside in February and March and actually use a rototiller, or better yet, use a hand trowel.’
‘Small hand trowels, secateurs or a new pair of gardening gloves are also favourites.’
‘Many of his clients are recently retired baby boomers who have given up their fancy threads and skyscraper offices for gloves, a trowel, and a garden in the country.’
‘If the kids are old enough to garden, they can usually manage to use a hand trowel and fork.’
‘When troweling it on, push and move the material, creating varying textures.’
‘At last a return for all that heavy labour, trowelling, surveying and drawing.’
‘I was trowelling down through stiff clay which is quite hard on the wrist and suddenly the soil gave way to reveal a hard surface made up of tiny bits of red tile.’
‘Finally, as the concrete further sets or stiffens, troweling operations begin, if required.’
‘Utterly maintenance free, it's a warm natural finish, sometimes with salmon- or ochre-colored striations, and can be troweled smooth or scraped vertically for a rough finish.’
‘This involves placing either a powdered or liquid release after color has been troweled, and rolling a large texture roller over the concrete surface.’
‘For a start, its façade doesn't need to be heavily trowelled with filler to make it look vaguely presentable.’
‘A full bed of adhesive should be fully troweled to within 1 inch of each edge on clean and dry boards using a 1/4-inch deep, notched trowel.’
‘Overlay cements are sticky and require experience in terms of troweling a finish.’
‘The purpose of this tool is to reduce local high spots caused by any imperfections in form setting and from the power floating and troweling operations.’
‘First, a scratch coat is troweled onto the lath; the plaster oozes through the lath and grips the backing when it hardens.’
‘This ‘lays the floor in,’ creating the best conditions for final troweling operations.’
‘Depending on the screeding method, parking lot pavement may be bullfloated or finished with a check rod, but it should not be troweled.’
‘Slabs that will be heavily troweled should not contain entrained air because of the probability that delamination will result.’
‘The cement becomes sticky, and troweling often causes damage by pulling the cement loose from the concrete, causing bubbles.’
‘She then troweled a thin layer of overlay cement into the unmasked areas, coloring it afterwards.’
‘You are now ready for the next finishing step - waiting for initial setting to occur and the bleed water to rise and evaporate - followed by troweling, edging, and jointing.’
‘I carefully troweled the last of the dirt around the spindly little plant.’
‘Final troweling operations are completed with riding trowels.’
‘These can simply be hand-filled and troweled smooth as you lay your bricks.’
Origin
Middle English (as a noun): from Old French truele, from medieval Latin truella, alteration of Latin trulla ‘scoop’, diminutive of trua ‘skimmer’.