shelling
/ˈʃɛlɪŋ/noun, verb
shelling is spelled S-H-E-L-L-I-N-G: 8 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,965th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, shelling means “An artillery bombardment” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of shelling is shellings.
How many letters and syllables are in shelling?
| Letters | 8: S-H-E-L-L-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words; the 22,965th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is shelling?
Shelling appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,965th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce shelling?
- /ˈʃɛlɪŋ/
Shelling has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-shelling.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of shelling
- shellings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does shelling mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An artillery bombardment.
- 2
The removal of the shell from a nut, pea etc.
- 3
Grain from which the husk has been removed.
- 4
An ordering of the facets of a boundary complex such that the intersection of each facet (other than the first) with the union of all preceding facets is homeomorphic to a ball or sphere. See Shelling (topology)
- 5
Shallow, irregular cracks that appear on the surface of a coating such as plaster or mortar.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of shell
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Shelling in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense artillery bombardment:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | bombardement |
| German | Bombardierung |
| Spanish | bombardeo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.