shell

/\ʃɛl\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#18,066

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

shell is aFrenchnoun. It means: Interface utilisateur d’un système d’exploitation, principalement destinée à lancer d’autres programmes et gérer leurs interactions. Le terme est généralement utilisé pour parler d’une interface en... Pronounced \ʃɛl\. Often confused with small and still.

Key facts for shell
PropertyValue
Headwordshell
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʃɛl\
Letters5
Frequency rank#18,066
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of shell in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for shell is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʃɛl\. Corpus data places it at rank #18,066 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Interface utilisateur d’un système d’exploitation, principalement destinée à lancer d’autres programmes et gérer leurs interactions. Le terme est généralement utilisé pour parler d’une interface en...".

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for shell, with forms such as "hsell", "sehll", and "shel". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "small", "still", "steel", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is shell, spelled S-H-E-L-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Interface utilisateur d’un système d’exploitation, principalement destinée à lancer d’autres programmes et gérer leurs interactions. Le terme est généralement utilisé pour parler d’une interface en ligne de commande. La norme ISO/IEC 2382-28:1995 donne les traductions « coquille » et « système essentiel ».

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: hsell,sehll,shel,shhell,shlel,sshell

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shell

Misspelling Variants of "shell"

hsell5sehll5shel4shhell6shlel5sshell6
Misspelling Variants of "shell"

Frequency rank: #18,066 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "shell"?
"shell" is spelled S-H-E-L-L. The IPA pronunciation is \ʃɛl\.
What does "shell" mean?
As a noun, "shell" means: Interface utilisateur d’un système d’exploitation, principalement destinée à lancer d’autres programmes et gérer leurs interactions. Le terme est généralement utilisé pour parler d’une interface en...
What words are commonly confused with "shell"?
"shell" is commonly confused with "small", "still", "steel". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "shell"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "shell" is \ʃɛl\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "shell" come from?
"shell" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.