shoad

shoad means loose fragments (often of metal ore) mixed with earth.

Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, shoad ranks #3,412 of 42,747 for Qualifying.

Etymology

From Middle English shode, schode, from Old English ġescēad (“separation, distinction, discretion, understanding, argument, reason, reckoning, account, statement, accuracy, art, manner, method”), from Proto-Germanic *skaidą (“separation, distinction”), from Proto-Indo-European *skey- (“to cut, divide, separate”). Related to Old English scādan (“to separate, divide, part, make a line of separation between”). More at shed.

noun

Loose fragments (often of metal ore) mixed with earth.e.g.“The earliest mining consisted simply in collecting shoads — a means of gaining a livelihood not yet totally discarded.” — 1915, Lionel Clive Ball, The Etheridge Mineral Field, page 37:

verb

To seek for a vein or mineral deposit by following a shode, or tracing them to whence they derived.e.g.“In shoading it is necessary to distinguish between heavy and light ores, and between friable and hard materials.” — 1879, William Bailes, Student's Guide to the Principles of Coal & Metal Mining, page 89:
To be distributed as shoads.e.g.“Among the fragments shoaded down the sloping surface of the ground are pieces of edgewise intraformational conglomerate.” — 1941, Royal Society of South Australia, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, page 307:

Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).