English Explanatory Dictionary

shell

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A hard external covering of an animal.
  2. The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.
  3. Any mollusk having such a covering.
  4. The exoskeleton or wing covers of certain insects.
  5. The conjoined scutes that constitute the "shell" (carapace) of a tortoise or turtle.
  6. The overlapping hard plates comprising the armor covering the armadillo's body.
  7. The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
  8. One of the outer layers of skin of an onion.
  9. The hard external covering of various plant seed forms.
  10. The covering, or outside part, of a nut.
  11. A pod containing the seeds of certain plants, such as the legume Phaseolus vulgaris.
  12. Husks of cacao seeds, a decoction of which is sometimes used as a substitute or adulterant for cocoa and its products such as chocolate.
verb
  1. To remove the outer covering or shell of something.
  2. To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery.
  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.
  6. To switch to a shell or command line.
  7. To form shallow, irregular cracks (in a coating).
  8. To form a shelling.
  9. To drop (the ball).
name
  1. A surname.
name
  1. A diminutive of the female given name Michelle or Shelly.

Pronunciation

shĕl /ʃɛl/ En-us-shell.ogg /ʃel/ /ʃæl/

Word forms

shell shells shelling shelled

Etymology

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 sċiell, from Proto-West Germanic *skallju, from Proto-Germanic *skaljō, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to split, cleave”). Compare West Frisian skyl (“peel, rind”), Dutch schil (“peel, skin, rink”), Low German Schell (“shell, scale”), Irish scelec (“pebble”), Old Church Slavonic сколика (skolika, “shell”). More at shale. Doublet of sheal. * (computing): From being viewed as an outer layer of interface between the user and the operating-system internals.

Synonyms

shell-like

Derived words

acorn-shell admiral shell aeroshell ark shell back shell backshell 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 cockleshell coconut shell come out of one’s shell cone shell crabshell date shell dead-in-shell deshell dove shell Dyson shell ear shell eggshell electron shell enshell file shell fountain shell go into one's shell half shell hardshell hard-shell clam harp shell headshell helmet shell inshell intershell jingle shell kidneyshell lamp shell lentil shell margin shell mask shell mason shell microshell mitre shell multishell music shell

Translations

Southern Altai: кабык Arabic: قِشْر Arabic: قِشْرَة Armenian: կճեպ Basque: oskol Belarusian: шкарлупі́на Belarusian: лушпі́на Belarusian: шалупа́йка Belarusian: шкару́па Bulgarian: черу́пка Catalan: closca Catalan: clovella Chinese Mandarin: 蛋殼 /蛋壳 Chinese Mandarin: 殼 /壳 Cornish: plisken Czech: skořápka Danish: æggeskal Dutch: schaal Dutch: eierschaal Egyptian: i-n:r:039 Esperanto: ŝelo Estonian: munakoor Finnish: munankuori Finnish: kuori French: coquille Galician: casca Georgian: ნაჭუჭი German: Schale German: Eierschale Greek: κέλυφος Ancient Greek: κέλυφος Hebrew: קליפה Hindi: खोल Hindi: खोखा Hungarian: héj Hungarian: tojáshéj Indonesian: cangkang Italian: guscio Japanese: 殻 Japanese: 卵殻 Khmer: សំបក Khmer: កណាណូ Korean: 껍질 Korean: 난각 Korean: 란각 Ladino: kashkara Latin: putāmen Luxembourgish: Schuel Macedonian: черупка Malay: kulit Malay: cangkerang Malay: cengkerang Malayalam: തോട് Manx: bleayst Māori: pāpapa Norman: cruque Norwegian Bokmål: eggeskall Norwegian Bokmål: skall
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