NUTSHELL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does nutshell mean? 

• NUTSHELL (noun)
  The noun NUTSHELL has 1 sense:

1. the shell around the kernel of a nut

  Familiarity information: NUTSHELL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NUTSHELL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The shell around the kernel of a nut

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("nutshell" is a kind of...):

shell (the hard usually fibrous outer layer of some fruits especially nuts)

 Context examples 

She next opened her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun, and so went to the feast.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

There it is in a nutshell.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There is the situation, Mr. Holmes, in a nutshell, and if you can help us to clear it up you will have done a great work.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This sentiment, as compressing the general question into a nutshell, gave the utmost satisfaction, and brought the gentleman into great notice until the ladies retired.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and if you can give me any light I shall be infinitely obliged to you.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I thought I should have died when I saw you two girls rattling about in the what-you-call-it, like two little kernels in a very big nutshell, and Mother waiting in state to receive the throng, sighed Jo, quite spent with laughter.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

So Chanticleer began to build a little carriage of nutshells: and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her home.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes upon me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched forward, with his face among the nutshells which strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It lay in a nutshell.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three dresses—of the sun, the moon, and the stars—up in a nutshell, and wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared her face and hands with soot.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)