shells

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of shell.

   The children gathered shells from the wet sand at low tide.

   Spent artillery shells littered the abandoned battlefield.

   Note

   A regular plural that covers more ground than the singular suggests. Shells can be the hard casings of mollusks, crustaceans and bird eggs, the wing covers of certain insects, or the plated armor of a turtle or an armadillo. More broadly, it can name the mollusks themselves, not only their casings. In all these uses it stays countable, unlike the pasta name.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of shell.

   He shells walnuts on the porch every fall.

   The battery shells enemy positions throughout the night.

   Note

   The spelling matches the plural noun, but here it agrees with he, she or it in the present: she shells peas, the battery shells the ridge. In the informal money sense it usually takes out (he shells out for the tickets). It can also stand without an object, as when a crust or a husk shells off on its own.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Alternative name for conchiglie, a type of pasta.

   She stuffed large shells with ricotta and spinach for dinner.

   Shells hold thick sauce well because of their hollow, curved shape.

   Note

   On a menu, shells is the everyday English for conchiglie, often spelled out as pasta shells. As the name of a dish it works like a mass noun, much as spaghetti does: shells with pesto. When the pieces are large and filled one by one, cooks still count them. Either way, it takes a plural verb.

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