shale

Meanings

Noun

• A shell or husk; a cod or pod.
• A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.

Verb

• To take off the shell or coat of.

Related

Similar words

• shell

Origin

• From Middle English schale ("shell, husk; scale"), from Old English sċealu ("shell, husk, pod"), from Proto-Germanic *skalō (compare West Frisian skaal ("dish"), Dutch schaal ("shell"), schalie, German Schale ("husk, pod")), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- ("to split, cut") (compare Lithuanian skalà ("splinter"), Old Church Slavonic скала ("rock, stone"), Polish skała ("rock"), Albanian halë ("fish bone, splinter"), Sanskrit कल ("small part")), from *(s)kel- (compare Hittite, Lithuanian skélti ("to split"), Ancient Greek σκάλλω ("to hoe, harrow")). scale. See also shell.