Word.ws English Dictionary

shellack

shellack is the alternative form of shellac.

Meaning of shellac

Noun

shellac (countable and uncountable, plural shellacs)

  1. A processed secretion of the lac insect, Coccus lacca; used in polishes, varnishes etc.
    • But, she says, a wartime ban on recordings using shellac and vinyl kept the Walker version from being released.2002 April 29, Norman Pearlstine, “A Month Of Mondays If that doesn't give you the blues, nothing will. Norman Pearlstine ranks his favorite versions of the classic "Stormy Monday Blues"--one for...
  2. (US, informal) A beating; a thrashing.

See all 5 meanings of shellac

Forms of shellack

Noun
pluralshellacks
Verb
third-person singular presentshellacks
present participleshellacking
past participleshellacked
pastshellacked

Questions about shellack

What is shellack the alternative form of?
Shellack is the alternative form of shellac.

Words near shellack in the dictionary

  1. shell-suit
  2. shell-suits
  3. shellability
  4. shellable
  5. shellac
  6. shellack
  7. shellacked
  8. shellacker
  9. shellackers
  10. shellacking
  11. shellackings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shellack (page history and authors); shellac (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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Cite this entry: “shellack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shellack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.