What is "shell"

Shell \Shell\, n. [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.]

1. A hard outside covering, as of a fruit or an animal. Specifically:

   1. The covering, or outside part, of a nut; as, a hazelnut shell.

   2. A pod.

   3. The hard covering of an egg.

      Think him as a serpent's egg, . . . And kill him in the shell.
      --Shak.

   4. (Zo["o]l.) 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.

   5. (Zo["o]l.) Hence, by extension, any mollusks having such a covering.

2. (Mil.) A hollow projectile, of various shapes, adapted for a mortar or a cannon, and containing an explosive substance, ignited with a fuse or by percussion, by means of which the projectile is burst and its fragments scattered. See Bomb.

3. The case which holds the powder, or charge of powder and shot, used with breechloading small arms.

4. Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in; as, the shell of a house.

5. A coarse kind of coffin; also, a thin interior coffin inclosed in a more substantial one.
   --Knight.

6. An instrument of music, as a lyre, -- the first lyre having been made, it is said, by drawing strings over a tortoise shell.

   When Jubal struck the chorded shell.
   --Dryden.

7. An engraved copper roller used in print works.

8. pl. The husks of cacao seeds, a decoction of which is often used as a substitute for chocolate, cocoa, etc.

9. (Naut.) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve.

10. A light boat the frame of which is covered with thin wood or with paper; as, a racing shell.

11. Something similar in form or action to an ordnance shell; specif.:

    1. (Fireworks) A case or cartridge containing a charge of explosive material, which bursts after having been thrown high into the air. It is often elevated through the agency of a larger firework in which it is contained.

    2. (Oil Wells) A torpedo.

12. A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is ground to shape.

13. A gouge bit or shell bit. Message shell, a bombshell inside of which papers may be put, in order to convey messages. Shell bit, a tool shaped like a gouge, used with a brace in boring wood. See Bit, n., 3. Shell button.

    1. A button made of shell.

    2. A hollow button made of two pieces, as of metal, one for the front and the other for the back, -- often covered with cloth, silk, etc. Shell cameo, a cameo cut in shell instead of stone. Shell flower. (Bot.) Same as Turtlehead. Shell gland. (Zo["o]l.)

       1. A glandular organ in which the rudimentary shell is formed in embryonic mollusks.

       2. A glandular organ which secretes the eggshells of various worms, crustacea, mollusks, etc.

          Shell gun, a cannon suitable for throwing shells.

          Shell ibis (Zo["o]l.), the openbill of India.

          Shell jacket, an undress military jacket.

          Shell lime, lime made by burning the shells of shellfish.

          Shell marl (Min.), a kind of marl characterized by an abundance of shells, or fragments of shells.

          Shell meat, food consisting of shellfish, or testaceous mollusks.
          --Fuller.

          Shell mound. See under Mound.

          Shell of a boiler, the exterior of a steam boiler, forming a case to contain the water and steam, often inclosing also flues and the furnace; the barrel of a cylindrical, or locomotive, boiler.

          Shell road, a road of which the surface or bed is made of shells, as oyster shells.

          Shell sand, minute fragments of shells constituting a considerable part of the seabeach in some places.

Shell \Shell\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Shelled; p. pr. & vb. n. Shelling.]

1. 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.

2. To separate the kernels of (an ear of Indian corn, wheat, oats, etc.) from the cob, ear, or husk.

3. To throw shells or bombs upon or into; to bombard; as, to shell a town.

   To shell out, to distribute freely; to bring out or pay, as money. [Colloq.]

Shell \Shell\, v. i.

1. To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc.

2. To cast the shell, or exterior covering; to fall out of the pod or husk; as, nuts shell in falling.

3. To be disengaged from the ear or husk; as, wheat or rye shells in reaping.

1560s, "to remove (a nut, etc.) from a shell," from shell (n.). The meaning "to bombard with shells" is first attested 1856. To shell out "disburse" (1801) is a figurative use from the image of extracting nuts. Related: Shelled; shelling.

Old English sciell, scill, Anglian scell "seashell, eggshell," related to Old English scealu "shell, husk," from Proto-Germanic *skaljo "piece cut off; shell; scale" (cognates: West Frisian skyl "peel, rind," Middle Low German schelle "pod, rind, egg shell," Gothic skalja "tile"), with the shared notion of "covering that splits off," from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut, cleave" (cognates: Old Church Slavonic skolika "shell," Russian skala "bark, rind;" see scale (n.1)). Italian scaglia "chip" is from Germanic.\n

\nSense of "mere exterior" is from 1650s; that of "hollow framework" is from 1791. Meaning "structure for a band or orchestra" is attested from 1938. Military use (1640s) was first of hand grenades, in reference to the metal case in which the gunpowder and shot were mixed; the notion is of a "hollow object" filled with explosives. Hence shell shock, first recorded 1915. Shell game "a swindle" is from 1890, from a version of three-card monte played with a pea and walnut shells.

n. 1 A hard external covering of an animal. 2 # The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. 3 # (context by extension English) Any mollusk having such a covering. 4 # (context entomology English) The exoskeleton or wing covers of certain insects. 5 # The conjoined scutes that comprise the "shell" (carapace) of a tortoise or turtle. 6 # The overlapping hard plates comprising the armor covering the armadillo's body. 7 The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg. 8 The hard external covering of various plant seed forms. 9 # The covering, or outside part, of a nut. 10 # A pod containing the seeds of certain plants, such as the legume ''Phaseolus vulgaris''. 11 # (context in the plural English) husk of cacao seeds, a decoction of which is sometimes used as a substitute or adulterant for cocoa and its products such as chocolate. 12 The accreted mineral formed around a hollow geode. 13 The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile. 14 A hollow usually spherical or cylindrical projectile fired from a siege mortar or a smoothbore cannon. It contains an explosive substance designed to be ignited by a fuse or by percussion at the target site so that it will burst and scattered at high velocity its contents and fragments. Formerly called a bomb. 15 The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round. 16 Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in, as the '''shell''' of a house. 17 A garment, usually worn by women, such as a shirt, blouse, or top, with short sleeves or no sleeves, that often fastens in the rear. 18 A coarse or flimsy coffin; a thin interior coffin enclosed within a more substantial one. 19 (context music English) A string instrument, as a lyre, whose acoustical chamber is formed like a shell. 20 (context music English) The body of a drum; the often wooden, often cylindrical acoustic chamber, with or without rims added for tuning and for attaching the drum head. 21 An engraved copper roller used in print works. 22 (context nautical English) The watertight outer covering of the hull of a vessel, often made with planking or metal plating. 23 (context nautical rigging English) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve. 24 (context nautical English) A light boat whose frame is covered with thin wood, impermeable fabric, or water-proofed paper; a racing shell or dragon boat. 25 (context computing English) An operating system software user interface, whose primary purpose is to launch other programs and control their interactions; the user's command interpreter. 26 (context chemistry English) A set of atomic orbitals that have the same principal quantum number. 27 An emaciated person. 28 A psychological barrier to social interaction. 29 (context business English) A legal entity that has no operations. 30 A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is grind to shape. 31 A gouge bit or shell bit. vb. 1 To remove the outer covering or shell of something. See sheller. 2 To bombard, to fire projectiles at, especially with artillery. 3 (context informal English) To disburse or give up money, to pay. (Often used with ''out''). 4 (context intransitive English) To fall off, as a shell, crust, etc. 5 (context intransitive English) To cast the shell, or exterior covering; to fall out of the pod or husk. 6 (context computing intransitive English) To switch to a shell or command line.

1. n. ammunition consisting of a cylindrical metal casing containing an explosive charge and a projectile; fired from a large gun

2. the material that forms the hard outer covering of many animals

3. hard outer covering or case of certain organisms such as arthropods and turtles [syn: carapace, cuticle]

4. the hard usually fibrous outer layer of some fruits especially nuts

5. the exterior covering of a bird's egg [syn: eggshell]

6. a rigid covering that envelops an object; "the satellite is covered with a smooth shell of ice"

7. a very light narrow racing boat [syn: racing shell]

8. the housing or outer covering of something; "the clock has a walnut case" [syn: case, casing]

9. a metal sheathing of uniform thickness (such as the shield attached to an artillery piece to protect the gunners) [syn: plate, scale]

10. the hard largely calcareous covering of a mollusc

1. v. use explosives on; "The enemy has been shelling us all day" [syn: blast]

2. fall out of the pod or husk; "The corn shelled"

3. hit the pitches of hard and regularly; "He shelled the pitcher for eight runs in the first inning"

4. look for and collect shells by the seashore

5. come out better in a competition, race, or conflict; "Agassi beat Becker in the tennis championship"; "We beat the competition"; "Harvard defeated Yale in the last football game" [syn: beat, beat out, crush, trounce, vanquish]

6. remove from its shell or outer covering; "shell the legumes"; "shell mussels"

7. remove the husks from; "husk corn" [syn: husk]

Shell may refer to:

In theater, a shell (also known as an acoustical shell, choral shell or bandshell) is a curved, hard surface designed to reflect sound towards an audience.

Often shells are designed to be removable, either rolling away on wheels or flying into a flyspace. Shells are most commonly used for orchestras, bands and choirs, although they can also be used in any application that requires passive sound amplification. Shells are generally made of hard materials because they are designed to absorb as little sound as possible.

A shell is a type of structural element which is characterized by its geometry, being a three-dimensional solid whose thickness is very small when compared with other dimensions, and in structural terms, by the stress resultants calculated in the middle plane displaying components which are both coplanar and normal to the surface. Essentially, a shell can be derived from a plate by two means: by initially forming the middle surface as a singly or doubly curved surface, and by applying loads which are coplanar to a plate's plane which generate significant stresses.

Shell is a 2012 independent Scottish drama film directed by Scott Graham. It stars Chloe Pirrie as Shell, a 17-year-old woman who lives and works at a petrol station in the remote Scottish Highlands. The film is a broader adaptation of a previous work by Scott Graham entitled with the same name released in 2007.

A shell is a payload-carrying projectile which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot (AP, APCR, APCNR, APDS, APFSDS and proof shot).Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used. Originally it was called a "bombshell", but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context.

All explosive- and incendiary-filled projectiles, particularly for mortars, were originally called grenades, derived from the pomegranate, so called because the many-seeded fruit suggested the powder-filled, fragmenting bomb, or from the similarity of shape. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages.

Shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery and combat vehicles (including tanks), and warships.

Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by an ogive-shaped nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base; but some specialized types are quite different.

In computing, a shell is a user interface for access to an operating system's services. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending on a computer's role and particular operation. It is named a shell because it is a layer around the operating system kernel.

The design of a shell is guided by cognitive ergonomics and the goal is to achieve the best workflow possible for the intended tasks; the design can be constricted by the available computing power (for example, of the GPU) or the available amount of graphics memory. The design of a shell is also dictated by the employed computer periphery, such as computer keyboard, pointing device (a mouse with one button, or one with five buttons, or a 3D mouse) or touchscreen, which is the direct human–machine interface.

CLI shells allow some operations to be performed faster, especially when a proper GUI has not been or cannot be created, however they require the user to memorize commands and their calling syntax, and to learn the shell-specific scripting language (for example bash script). CLIs are also easier to be operated via refreshable braille display and provide certain advantages to screen readers.

Graphical shells place a low burden on beginning computer users, and they are characterized as being simple and easy to use. With the widespread adoption of programs with GUIs, the use of graphical shells has gained greater adoption. Since graphical shells come with certain disadvantages (for example, lack of support for easy automation of operation sequences), most GUI-enabled operating systems also provide additional CLI shells.