“shells” is a form of
shell
/ʃɛl/ noun, verb, proper noun
- noun 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.”
- noun (by extension) Any mollusk having such a covering.
- noun (entomology) The exoskeleton or wing covers of certain insects.
- noun The conjoined scutes that constitute the "shell" (carapace) of a tortoise or turtle.
- noun The overlapping hard plates comprising the armor covering the armadillo's body.
- noun The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
- noun One of the outer layers of skin of an onion. “The restaurant served caramelized onion shells.”
- noun 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.”
- verb To remove the outer covering or shell of something.
- verb To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery. “The guns shelled the enemy trenches.”
- verb (informal) To disburse or give up money, to pay. (Often used with out).
- verb (intransitive) To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc.
- verb (intransitive) To cast the shell, or exterior covering; to fall out of the pod or husk. “Nuts shell in falling.”
- verb (computing, intransitive) To switch to a shell or command line.
- verb To form shallow, irregular cracks (in a coating).
- verb (topology) To form a shelling.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A diminutive of the female given name Michelle or Shelly.
Synonyms
shell-like carapace cuticle shield eggshell racing shell case casing plate scale blast beat beat out crush trounce vanquish husk
Etymology
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”).
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”), Ukrainian скала́ (skalá), ска́ля (skálja, “cliff, rock”), Armenian քաղել (kʻaġel, “to pick; to gather; to mow”), Sanskrit कॢप् (kḷp, “to order; to manage; to perform; to create; to cut”). More at shale.
* (computing): From being viewed as an outer layer of interface between the user and the operating-system internals.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A hard outside covering, as of a fruit or an animal. Specifically: (a) The covering, or outside part, of a nut; as, a hazelnut shell.
- noun The hard calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. In some mollusks, as the cuttlefishes, it is internal, or concealed by the mantle. Also, the hard covering of some vertebrates, as the armadillo, the tortoise, and the like.
- verb To strip or break off the shell of; to take out of the shell, pod, etc.; as, to shell nuts or pease; to shell oysters.
- verb To separate the kernels of (an ear of Indian corn, wheat, oats, etc.) from the cob, ear, or husk.
Etymology [OE. shelle, schelle, AS. scell, scyll; akin to D. shel, Icel. skel, Goth. skalja a tile, and E. skill. Cf. Scale of fishes, Shale, Skill.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shell”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details