shell

A hard external covering of an animal.

Noun

  1. A hard external covering of an animal.
    • In some mollusks, as the cuttlefish, the shell is concealed by the animal's outer mantle and is considered internal.
    • Genuine mother-of-pearl buttons are made from sea shells.
    • […] if with thee the roaring wells ⁠Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; ⁠And hands so often clasp’d in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells. - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto X”, in In Memoriam, London:...

    1. The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.

    2. (by extension) Any mollusk having such a covering.

    3. (entomology) The exoskeleton or wing covers of certain insects.

    4. The conjoined scutes that constitute the "shell" (carapace) of a tortoise or turtle.

    5. The overlapping hard plates comprising the armor covering the armadillo's body.

  2. The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
  3. One of the outer layers of skin of an onion.
    • The restaurant served caramelized onion shells.
  4. The hard external covering of various plant seed forms.
    • The black walnut and the hickory nut, both of the same Genus as the pecan, have much thicker and harder shells than the pecan.

    1. The covering, or outside part, of a nut.

    2. A pod containing the seeds of certain plants, such as the legume Phaseolus vulgaris.

    3. (in the plural) Husks of cacao seeds, a decoction of which is sometimes used as a substitute or adulterant for cocoa and its products such as chocolate.

  5. The accreted mineral formed around a hollow geode.
  6. The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile.
  7. A hollow, usually spherical or cylindrical projectile fired from a siege mortar or a smoothbore cannon. It contains an explosive substance designed to be ignited by a fuse or by percussion at the target site so that it will burst and scatter at high velocity its contents and fragments. Formerly called a bomb.
  8. The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round.
  9. Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in, as the shell of a house.
  10. A garment, usually worn by women, such as a shirt, blouse, or top, with short sleeves or no sleeves, that often fastens in the rear.
  11. A coarse or flimsy coffin; a thin interior coffin enclosed within a more substantial one.
    • Upstairs in that chill darkened room which nobody passes who can help it , the old Baronet lies in his coffin shell - an awful form faintly defined beneath the sheet - 1877, Burke O'Farrell, Proud as Lucifer: A Novel:
  12. An unmarked vehicle for carrying corpses from a crime scene.
    • Then they lifted the body into the bag, setting it down like something breakable, zipped the bag, wrapped the whole thing in polythene and carried the stretcher into the shell. - 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page...

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- Proto-Indo-European *skolH-yeh₂ Proto-Germanic *skaljō Proto-West Germanic *skallju Old English sċiell Middle English schelle English shell From Middle English schelle, from Old English sċel, sċell, sċiell, sċil, sċill, sċyl, sċyll, from Proto-West Germanic *skallju, from Proto-Germanic *skaljō (“shell; husk; rind; peel”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to cut; to separate, split”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch schil (“bark, rind, skin; crust; shell; slice”), Danish skæl (“scale; dandruff”), Faroese and Icelandic skel (“shell”), Norwegian Bokmål skjell (“shell; scale”), Norwegian Nynorsk skjel (“shell; bivalve; scale; carapace”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰 (skalja, “brick, tile”), French écaille (“scale; shell”), Friulian scae (“scale”), Italian scaglia (“scale; flake, sliver; splinter”); also Breton killi (“grove”), Cornish kelli (“grove”), Irish...

Forms

shells

Derived

acorn-shell admiral shell aeroshell ark shell backshell back shell bag of shell bandshell blind shell boat shell bodyshell body shell bombshell breast shell bubble shell Camino de Santiago shell Camino pilgrim shell camper shell carpet shell carrier shell chicken shell clamshell clean shell clubshell

Verb

  1. To remove the outer covering or shell of something.
  2. To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery.
    • The guns shelled the enemy trenches.
    • There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. - 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott...
  3. To disburse or give up money, to pay. (Often used with out).
  4. To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc.
  5. To cast the shell, or exterior covering; to fall out of the pod or husk.
    • Nuts shell in falling.
    • Wheat or rye shells in reaping.
  6. To switch to a shell or command line.
    • Automenu is a good program to try, and offers a fair amount of protection - but, unfortunately, it's one of those systems that allow users to shell to DOS. - 1993, Robin Nixon, The PC Companion, page 115:
  7. To form shallow, irregular cracks (in a coating).
  8. To form a shelling.
  9. To drop (the ball).
    • He shelled it, and dislocated his finger in the process. - 2022, Nicholas Brookes, An Island's Eleven: The Story of Sri Lankan Cricket:

Forms

shells shelling shelled

Derived

like shelling peas shellable sheller shell out