1 [C,U] the hard outer part of eggs, nuts, some seeds and some animals:
We collected shells on the beach. * snail / mussel / walnut shells * earrings made out of coconut shell
seealsoEGGSHELL, NUTSHELL, SEASHELL, TORTOISESHELL
2 [C] any object that looks like the shell of a SNAIL or sea creature:
pasta shells
3 [C] a metal case filled with explosive, to be fired from a large gun:
A shell burst only yards away from us.
4 (AmE) = CARTRIDGE
5 [C] the walls or outer structure of sth, for example, an empty building or ship after a fire or a bomb attack:
The house was now a shell gutted by flames. * (figurative) My life has been an empty shell since he died.
6 [C] any structure that forms a hard outer frame:
the body shell of a car
7 [sing.] the outer layer of sb's personality; how they seem to be or feel:
She had developed a shell of indifference.
IDIOMS
come out of your shell to become less shy and more confident when talking to other people:
He's really come out of his shell since he met Marie.
to go / retreat etc. into your shell to become shyer and avoid talking to other people:
Whenever my friends are here, she just withdraws into her shell.
Part of speech: verb
1 to fire shells at sth:
[VN] They shelled the city all night. * [V] Just as they were leaving the rebels started shelling.
2 [VN] to remove the shell or covering from nuts, peas, etc:
shelled prawns / shrimp
PHRASALVERBS
shell out (for sth)
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for shell is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is shell a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, shell is tagged as noun.
Does shell appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — shell appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
