Word.ws English Dictionary

shell

UK/ʃɛl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ʃel/

shell noun: the calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.

shell: the calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates
Image: Brian0918, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

shell (plural shells)

  1. The 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.
  2. (broadly) Any mollusk having such a covering.
  3. 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.
  6. The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
  7. One of the outer layers of skin of an onion.
    • The restaurant served caramelized onion shells.
  8. The 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.
  9. A pod containing the seeds of certain plants, such as the legume Phaseolus vulgaris.
  10. (in 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.
  11. The accreted mineral formed around a hollow geode.
  12. The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile.
Show 27 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. 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.
  2. The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round.
  3. Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in, as the shell of a house.
  4. 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.
  5. 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 sheet1877, Burke O'Farrell, Proud as Lucifer: A Novel
  6. 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 23
  7. A 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.
    • when Jubal struck the chorded shell1687, John Dryden, A Song for Cecilia's Day
  8. The body of a drum; the often wooden, often cylindrical acoustic chamber, with or without rims added for tuning and for attaching the drum head.
  9. An engraved copper roller used in print works.
  10. The thin coating of copper on an electrotype.
  11. The watertight outer covering of the hull of a vessel, often made with planking or metal plating.
  12. (rigging) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve.
  13. A light boat whose frame is covered with thin wood, impermeable fabric, or water-proofed paper; a racing shell or dragon boat.
  14. A set of atomic orbitals that have the same principal quantum number.
  15. (figuratively) The outward form independent of what is inside.
  16. (figuratively) The empty outward form of someone or something.
    • The setback left him a mere shell; he was never the same again.
    • Mr. Thomas adds that, by the time it was scrapped, Kingsley was in very bad condition, little more than a shell in fact. In view of the rough usage to which the engine had been subjected, this is not surprising.1953 April, “Notes and News: Locomotive Notes”, in Railway Magazine, page 283
  17. An emaciated person.
    • He's lost so much weight from illness; he's a shell of his former self.
  18. (figuratively) A person otherwise diminished.
    • Since coming back from Vietnam, he's been a shell of his former self.
  19. A psychological barrier to social interaction.
    • Even after months of therapy he's still in his shell.
  20. An operating system software user interface, whose primary purpose is to launch other programs and control their interactions; the user's command interpreter. Shell is a way to separate the internal complexity of the implementation of the command from the user. The internals can change while the user experience/interface remains the same.
    • The name "Bash" is an acronym which stands for "Bourne-again shell", itself a pun on the name of the "Bourne shell", an earlier Unix shell designed by Stephen Bourne, and the Christian concept of being "born again".
  21. A legal entity that has no operations.
    • A shell corporation was formed to acquire the old factory.
  22. A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is ground to shape.
  23. A gouge bit or shell bit.
  24. The onset and coda of a syllable.
  25. (UK, slang) A person's ear.
    • Can I have a quick word in your shell?
    Synonyms:
    shell-like
  26. (UK) One or more school grades within secondary education, at certain public schools.
    • Chinese (Mandarin) is taught at Westminster from the Lower Shell as an optional subject.2013, “Chinese (Mandarin)”, in Westminster School, retrieved 04 Dec 2023
  27. In formal debating, a set of proposed rules to be followed, with set penalties for violating them.
    • a theory shell
    • a topicality shell

Verb

shell (third-person singular simple present shells, present participle shelling, simple past and past participle shelled)

  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 Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 203
  3. (informal) To disburse or give up money, to pay. (Often used with out).
  4. (intransitive) To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc.
  5. (intransitive) 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. (intransitive) 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. (slang, transitive) 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

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Shell

Shell

  1. A surname.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Shell

Shell

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Michelle or Shelly.

shell meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

shell in Hindi

hard covering of an egg
खोल khol, खोखा khokhā
hard calcareous or chitinous external covering of many invertebrates
खोल khol, शैल śail, कौड़ी kauṛī
entomology: exoskeleton of certain insects
खोखा khokhā
conjoined scutes that comprise the "shell" of a tortoise or turtle
खोल khol

shell in Tamil

hard calcareous or chitinous external covering of many invertebrates
ஓடு ōṭu

shell in Marathi

to shell
सोलणे solṇe

shell in Urdu

hard calcareous or chitinous external covering of many invertebrates
شیل śail
More languagesFewer languages
shell in Bengali
খোল khōl, শেল śel
shell in Telugu
చిప్ప cippa, బెరడు beraḍu
shell in Malayalam
തോട് tōṭŭ, തൊണ്ട് toṇṭŭ
shell in Kannada
ಗಿಣ್ಣಿಲು giṇṇilu, ಶಂಖ śaṅkha, ಸಿಂಪಿ simpi
shell in Gujarati
કોચલું koclũ
shell in Odia
କୋଷ koṣa
shell in Sanskrit
शङ्ख śaṅkhá, शुक्ति śukti, कम्बु kambu
shell in Assamese
খোলা khüla, বাকলি bakoli
shell in Pashto
صدف sadáf
shell in Tagalog
bao, balok, mulpikning balok
shell in Arabic
قِشْر qišr, قِشْرَة qišra, صَدَفَة ṣadafa, صَدَفة ṣadafa
shell in Malay
kulit, cangkerang, cengkerang, sisik
shell in Indonesian
cangkang, selongsong, kerang, sayap keras
shell in Persian
پوسته puste, صدف sadaf, شنج šonj, لاک lâk
shell in Thai
เปลือก bplʉ̀ʉak, กระดอง grà-dɔɔng, เปลือกหอย bplʉ̀ʉak-hɔ̌i, เชลล์
shell in Vietnamese
vỏ, vỏ trứng, mai, mu
shell in Myanmar
အခွံ a.hkwam

Examples of shell in a sentence

  • Before colonial times cowry shells imported from Mauritius were used as money in Western Africa.
  • The bank robbers' handloaded shotgun shells used rock salt as the shot.
  • When using the "bash" shell, you can escape the ampersand character with a backslash.

All 40 example sentences with shell

Synonyms of shell

Forms of shell

Noun
pluralshells
Verb
third-person singular presentshells
present participleshelling
past participleshelled
pastshelled

Past tense of shell: shelled

Plural of shell: shells

Origin of 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 coill (“forest, wood”), Manx keyll (“forest, wood; grove, plantation”), Scottish Gaelic coille (“forest”), Welsh celli (“grove”), Latin scalpō (“to scratch; to carve”), Ancient Greek σκᾰ́λλω (skắllō, “to hoe, stir up”), Albanian çel (“to open up; to sprout; to hatch up; to rise”), Lithuanian skelti (“to crack, split”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Russian скала́ (skalá, “cliff, rock”), Czech skála (“rock”), Polish skała, skáła, szkała (“rock”), Slovak and Slovene skala (“rock”)...

Words formed from shell

Phrases with shell

99 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with shell

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about shell

What does shell mean?
Shell means the calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.
What is shell in Hindi?
Shell in Hindi is खोल (khol), खोखा (khokhā), शैल (śail). See Shell meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is shell?
Shell can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce shell?
Shell is pronounced /ʃɛl/ (UK).
What is the plural of shell?
The plural of shell is shells.

Words near shell in the dictionary

  1. Shelia
  2. Sheliak
  3. Shelikof Strait
  4. Sheline
  5. Shelines
  6. shell
  7. shell bean
  8. shell beans
  9. shell bed
  10. shell casing
  11. shell casings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shell (page history and authors); Shell (page history and authors); सोलणे (Marathi) (page history and authors); చిప్ప (Telugu) (page history and authors); ಗಿಣ್ಣಿಲು (Kannada) (page history and authors); કોચલું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); କୋଷ (Odia) (page history and authors); कम्बु (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); খোলা (Assamese) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-shell.ogg.

Cite this entry: “shell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.