Skip to main content
eggshell

eggshell

34 1.0
A thin hard outer layer that covers a bird's egg
  • noun
  • /ˈɛɡˌʃɛl/
translation icon : cáscara de huevo
  • "I'll miss you, Douglas," she said, the eggshell cup leveled at her painted lips.
  • thin eggshell
  • fragile as an eggshell
  • white eggshell

You've seen those diagrams where it's like Earth's crust and it's like this tiny little eggshell on top of a mantle that's off massive.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Andy was left staring at the little fragments of eggshell on the ground.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • I have some eggshell pants that might...

  • White beige eggshell, Something to remember.

  • What is the mechanism by which the eggshell is lost or reduced in thickness?

    Academic text (1993)
  • In each transparent eggshell was a baby octopus, as big as the head of a pin.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • Across the room, the trash can tumbled and the eggshells scattered over the floor.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • I also used to imitate Roman mosaics with eggshells when I was a child; I tell him so.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • I'm getting damn tired of the eggshell off-white superplastic eternal finish on the walls of this office.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • The internees were even modifying the soil with eggshells to make the high desert more fertile.

    Academic text (2011)
  • The fragile eggshell cracked when it was accidentally dropped on the floor.

Synonyms

shell
vseggshell
296 1.0

A hard outer covering that protects animals, eggs, or nuts

is the thin specific covering for a bird egg rather than a general case

Surface Forms

eggshell singular
eggshells plural

Morphology

eggshell = egg + shell (transparent) = egg + shell

A straightforward compound of 'egg' + 'shell' whose meaning is directly the outer covering of an egg.

Etymology

Eggshell is simply made from the two words egg and shell, meaning 'egg' and 'a hard outside'. Like a nut or a turtle, the shell protects what is inside, so an eggshell is the thin, hard outer covering of an egg.