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A hard external covering of an animal.
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The hard calcareous covering of a bird egg.
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One of the outer layers of skin of an onion.
example
The restaurant served caramelized onion shells.
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The hard external covering of various plant seed forms.
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The accreted mineral formed around a hollow geode.
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The casing of a self-contained single-unit artillery projectile.
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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.
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The cartridge of a breechloading firearm; a load; a bullet; a round.
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Any slight hollow structure; a framework, or exterior structure, regarded as not complete or filled in, as the shell of a house.
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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.
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A coarse or flimsy coffin; a thin interior coffin enclosed within a more substantial one.
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A string instrument, as a lyre, whose acoustical chamber is formed like a shell.
example
The first lyre may have been made by drawing strings over the underside of a tortoise shell.
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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.
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An engraved copper roller used in print works.
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The thin coating of copper on an electrotype.
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The watertight outer covering of the hull of a vessel, often made with planking or metal plating.
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(rigging) The outer frame or case of a block within which the sheaves revolve.
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A light boat whose frame is covered with thin wood, impermeable fabric, or water-proofed paper; a racing shell or dragon boat.
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A set of atomic orbitals that have the same principal quantum number.
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The outward form independent of what is inside.
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The empty outward form of someone or something.
example
The setback left him a mere shell; he was never the same again.
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An emaciated person.
example
He's lost so much weight from illness; he's a shell of his former self.
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A psychological barrier to social interaction.
example
Even after months of therapy he's still in his shell.
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An operating system software user interface, whose primary purpose is to launch other programs and control their interactions; the user's command interpreter. Shell is a way to separate the internal complexity of the implementation of the command from the user. The internals can change while the user experience/interface remains the same.
example
The name "Bash" is an acronym which stands for "Bourne-again shell", itself a pun on the name of the "Bourne shell", an earlier Unix shell designed by Stephen Bourne, and the Christian concept of being "born again".
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A legal entity that has no operations.
example
A shell corporation was formed to acquire the old factory.
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A concave rough cast-iron tool in which a convex lens is ground to shape.
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A gouge bit or shell bit.
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The onset and coda of a syllable.
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A person's ear.
example
Can I have a quick word in your shell?
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