- areas in rivers or the sea where the water is not deep are sometimes known as shaulds in Scots. Both Scots shauld and English shoal are derived from the Old English adjective sceald, 'shallow'.
In Samuel Hibbert's A Description of the Shetland Islands (1822), mention is made of a song
named the Shaalds of Foula, bearing allusion to a profitable fishery for cod that was long conducted upon those shaalds or shoals.
Although not widespread throughout Scotland, the word was recorded in use in Shetland, Orkney, Fife and Ayr in 1970 (see the Scottish National Dictionary in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language).