How to use shell in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Shell means the calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. Example: “In some mollusks, as the cuttlefish, the shell is concealed by the animal's outer mantle and is considered internal.”

Examples of shell by meaning

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

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.

nounOne of the outer layers of skin of an onion.

The restaurant served caramelized onion shells.

nounThe covering, or outside part, of a nut.

The black walnut and the hickory nut, both of the same Genus as the pecan, have much thicker and harder shells than the pecan.

nounAn 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 23

nounA string instrument, as a lyre, whose acoustical chamber is formed like a shell.

The first lyre may have been made by drawing strings over the underside of a tortoise shell.

nounThe empty outward form of someone or something.

The setback left him a mere shell; he was never the same again.
Thomas adds that, by the time it was scrapped, Kingsley was in very bad condition, little more than a shell in fact.1953 April, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes”, in Railway Magazine, page 283

nounAn emaciated person.

He's lost so much weight from illness; he's a shell of his former self.

nounA person otherwise diminished.

Since coming back from Vietnam, he's been a shell of his former self.

More sentences with shell

Before colonial times cowry shells imported from Mauritius were used as money in Western Africa.From the entry money
The bank robbers' handloaded shotgun shells used rock salt as the shot.From the entry shot
When using the "bash" shell, you can escape the ampersand character with a backslash.From the entry escape
I am indebted to a friend for the determination of most of these shells.From the entry determination
Do you think we should shell out for the extra options package?From the entry shell out
I kept the shell as a memento of my visit to the seashore.From the entry memento
“She sells sea shells” is a bit of a mouthful to say.From the entry mouthful
The gastropod mollusc abalone is auriform, and therefore also known as the ear shell.From the entry auriform
The shells we found on the beach were varyingly white, pink, and pale yellow.From the entry varyingly
The business was sold to a publicly traded clean shell to achieve rapid liquidity for the owners.From the entry clean shell
This study concerns all infaunal brachiopods that possess an inarticulate, organo-phosphatic, linguliform shell.From the entry linguliform
Shell sand is a useful manure for clay soils, heavy loams, and newly reclaimed bogs.From the entry shell sand
I used C, Perl, the Bourne shell, and some AWK and Tcl to implement these projects.From the entry awk
The artillery fired gas shells into the enemy trenches.From the entry gas
The little girl was hunting for shells on the beach.From the entry hunt
I found this shell on the beach.From the entry find
The cruiser blew up when a shell hit its magazine.From the entry magazine
The next step drops the user to a recovery shell.From the entry drop
The snail’s body contracted into its shell.From the entry contract
Short-term energy monitoring tuning follows a very prescribed procedure; building shell parameters are adjusted first, then HVAC efficiency.From the entry prescribed
A headless shell doesn't have a flange.From the entry headless
The shell of the nautilus is siphoniferous.From the entry siphoniferous
Next, you drop to a shell.From the entry drop
E.g., orthoconic is a mollusc shell that is straight rather than spiraled, orthodentin is dentin composed of straight tubes, orthognathous is straight-jawed. .From the entry ortho-
The hatchling alligator had just broken out of its shell but was already trying to follow its mother, who hunted hatchling birds.From the entry hatchling
We were pinned down by shellfire. If the artillery hadn't run out of shells to shoot at us we would have been wiped out.From the entry shellfire
The shells of Foraminifera are polythalamous.From the entry polythalamous
The shells of nuts are scleroid.From the entry scleroid
Yu 'ad a shrimp an' it choked yu praaperly. Yu was always a squeamy little feller. I can't never think 'ow yu managed in the war-time, makin' they shells.From the entry squeamy
And when they do, they shell out the most money—almost 40% more globally and in the U.S.2023 August 19, Paige Hagy, “'Girl math,' the TikTok trend where young women justify their spending, isn't a lifestyle or a delusion—it's…. From the entry girl math

Meaning of shell

noun The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.
noun Any mollusk having such a covering.
noun The exoskeleton or wing covers of certain insects.

Full definition of shell

Questions about shell in a sentence

How do you use shell in a sentence?: Shell is used as a noun and verb. For example: “In some mollusks, as the cuttlefish, the shell is concealed by the animal's outer mantle and is considered internal.”
What is a short sentence with shell?: “Next, you drop to a shell.”
What does shell mean?: Shell means the calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shell (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use shell in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/shell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.