Definition of trowel in US English:

trowel

nounPlural trowels

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.’

verbtrowelled, trowels, troweling, troweled, trowelling

[with object]

Apply or spread with or as if with a trowel.
‘trowel in enough soil to form a dome’
‘Kerrie troweled jam onto her toast’
- ‘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.’