SHELL
What does "SHELL" mean?
The hard protective outer covering of an animal, seed, egg, or nut.
Meanings
- The hard outer case of a mollusc, egg, nut, or similar object. She pressed the conch shell to her ear to hear the sea.
- An explosive projectile or cartridge fired from a gun. Artillery shells whistled overhead through the night.
- A hollow or empty outer structure or framework. After the fire only the shell of the building remained.
- A program that provides a command-line interface to an operating system. He ran the backup script from a Bash shell. technical
- To bombard with explosive shells. The town was shelled for three days before the surrender.
- To remove the shell or husk from. They sat on the porch shelling peas all afternoon.
Did you know?
- The term 'shell shock' entered medicine in a 1915 Lancet article by psychologist Charles Myers - it was first blamed on the physical force of exploding shells before being understood as psychological trauma.
Word origin
From Old English 'sciell' meaning a seashell or eggshell, from Proto-Germanic '*skaljo', a thing that divides or peels off; related to 'scale' and 'skill'.
Remember it
Picture a turtle: its hard SHELL has two L's at the end, like two layers of armour.
A little poem
Empty conch on sand-
the snail moved out years ago,
still it holds the sea.
haiku
Wordplay
- Why don't oysters share their pearls? Because they're a little shellfish.
What it teaches
Every shell is both a fortress and a cage; the same wall that guards you can also wall you in.
Quick facts
What does SHELL mean?
The hard protective outer covering of an animal, seed, egg, or nut.
Is SHELL a valid word?
Yes — SHELL is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SHELL?
SHELL has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SHELL come from?
From Old English 'sciell' meaning a seashell or eggshell, from Proto-Germanic '*skaljo', a thing that divides or peels off; related to 'scale' and 'skill'.
What can SHELL teach us?
Every shell is both a fortress and a cage; the same wall that guards you can also wall you in.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.