Definition

1. Verb (transitive, informal):
   • To eat a large amount of food quickly and eagerly: To consume food rapidly, often in a greedy or hurried manner.
   • To earn or acquire large sums of money, especially with seeming ease: To amass money quickly or in substantial quantities.

Usage Examples

• Verb (eating):

  • After the game, he was so hungry he just shoveled in two plates of pasta.
  • Don't just shovel in your food; take your time and enjoy it.

• Verb (earning money):

  • With that new tech startup, they're really shoveling in the cash.
  • The company has been shoveling in profits since the product launch.

Advanced Usage

• The phrase often carries a slightly negative or critical connotation, implying a lack of manners when referring to eating, or excessive greed when referring to earning money.
• It is frequently used in the continuous tense (e.g., ) to emphasize an ongoing action.

Variants and Related Words

• Shovel (verb): The base verb meaning to move material with a shovel. "Shovel in" is a phrasal verb extension of this action.
• Gobble down / Wolf down: Synonyms for eating quickly.
• Rake in: A close synonym for earning large sums of money.

Synonyms

• For eating: Gobble (down), wolf (down), devour, bolt, gorge on.
• For earning: Rake in, pull in, make a killing, clean up.

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Shovel down: Very similar to "shovel in," used primarily for eating.
  • He shoveled down his breakfast and ran out the door.
• Shovel out: To clear something by shoveling (e.g., snow); to pay out money, often reluctantly.
  • We had to shovel out the driveway after the storm.
  • I had to shovel out a fortune for those car repairs.

Related Idioms

• Make a killing: To earn a lot of money quickly.
  • He made a killing in the stock market.
• Eat like a horse: To eat large quantities of food.
  • My teenage brother eats like a horse.

Verb

1. eat a large amount of food quickly
   • The children gobbled down most of the birthday cake
2. earn large sums of money
   • Since she accepted the new position, she has been raking it in