Word.ws English Dictionary

bag of shells

bag of shells noun: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bag, shell.

Noun

bag of shells (plural bags of shells)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bag, shell.
  2. A trifle.
    • For an ordinary intellect, yes, but for me a mere bagatelle, or bag-of-shells, as the ancients have it.1914, Matthew M. Colton, Frank Armstrong at college, page 39

Forms of bag of shells

pluralbags of shells

Origin of bag of shells

Misconstruction of bagatelle (“trifle”).

Questions about bag of shells

What does bag of shells mean?
Bag of shells means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bag, shell.
What part of speech is bag of shells?
Bag of shells is a noun.
What is the plural of bag of shells?
The plural of bag of shells is bags of shells.

Words near bag of shells in the dictionary

  1. bag of fruit
  2. bag of holding
  3. bag of mystery
  4. bag of nerves
  5. bag of rations
  6. bag of shells
  7. bag of tricks
  8. bag of waters
  9. bag of weasels
  10. bag of wind
  11. bag of words

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bag of shells (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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