Meaning
To pay money, usually reluctantly and typically an amount the payer regards as excessive or unwelcome; used with a stated sum or with for, as in shelling out for repairs, and common in the past tense for grumbling about bills. Informal, with a mildly grumbling tone that implies reluctance or an unwelcome amount; Cambridge labels it informal in both UK and US usage. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The verb shell, meaning to remove a seed or nut from its husk, is attested in the mid-1500s, and the payment sense of shell out first appears in 1801, in Maria Edgeworth's Moral Tales - 'shell out your corianders', coriander seed then being slang for coins. Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) glosses it as subscribing or clubbing pence together. Etymonline calls it a figurative use from the image of extracting nuts from their shells, but Word Histories cautions that this tidy explanation may be folk etymology and records an alternative: shells was thieves' cant for money as early as 1592, in Robert Greene's A Notable Discovery of Coosenage - 'The monie, the Shels'. Claims tying the phrase to cowrie or wampum shell money have no dated support in the record.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- shell out for
- shelled out
- shelling out
Usage Examples
- After the third repair quote arrived, we grudgingly shelled out two thousand dollars for a new furnace instead.
- Season ticketholders will have to shell out nearly ninety dollars just to park near the stadium this year.
- Rather than shell out for a hotel, the cousins crashed on our futon and thanked us with a bag of coffee beans.