shell game
shell game noun: a game of skill which requires the bettor to guess which of three small cups (or shells) a pea-sized object is concealed under, after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery.
Noun
shell game (plural shell games)
- A game of skill which requires the bettor to guess which of three small cups (or shells) a pea-sized object is concealed under, after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery.
- Another common form of short con is the shell game. This scam has the advantage of giving the criminal the ability to rip off many marks all at one location.2009, Michael Benson, Cons and Frauds, Infobase, →ISBN, page 21
- Synonyms:
- thimblerig
- Any confidence scheme, especially one involving the rapid movement of investment funds to a location beyond recovery.
Synonyms of shell game
Forms of shell game
| plural | shell games |
|---|
Questions about shell game
- What does shell game mean?
- Shell game means a game of skill which requires the bettor to guess which of three small cups (or shells) a pea-sized object is concealed under, after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery.
- What part of speech is shell game?
- Shell game is a noun.
- What is the plural of shell game?
- The plural of shell game is shell games.
Words near shell game in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shell game (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-shell game.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shell game.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shell_game. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.