shove

How to use shove in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for shove.

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Editorial note

I've been poor, but if push came to shove, I always had a middle-class mother I could move back to.

Examples5

Definitions4

Parts of speech2

Quick take

the act of shoving (giving a push to someone or something); "he gave the door a shove"

Meaning at a glance

The clearest senses and uses of shove gathered in one view.

noun

the act of shoving (giving a push to someone or something); "he gave the door a shove"

verb

come into rough contact with while moving; "The passengers jostled each other in the overcrowded train"

verb

push roughly; "the people pushed and shoved to get in line"

Definitions

Core meanings and parts of speech for shove.

noun

the act of shoving (giving a push to someone or something); "he gave the door a shove"

verb

come into rough contact with while moving; "The passengers jostled each other in the overcrowded train"

verb

push roughly; "the people pushed and shoved to get in line"

verb

press or force; "Stuff money into an envelope"; "She thrust the letter into his hand"

Example sentences

I've been poor, but if push came to shove, I always had a middle-class mother I could move back to.

Is he the kind of guy who will shove technology decisions down the throats of engineers?

This type of "people of political group X _say_ this thing, but when push comes to shove they're really like this" can be applied to any group you'd like.

Personally, I think it's a good thing when the project's technical leaders can shove all that other stuff onto somebody else.

Modern classification schemes are so arbitrary and error-prone as to be essentially just a painful way to satisfy scientists' compulsion to shove things into neat little cubbies and has the negative side-effect of scaring students away from an otherwise fascinating subject.