Etymology

nutshell

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Today it means: The shell that surrounds the kernel of a nut. Full definition →

Middle English notschelle ← Old English hnutsċiell ← Proto-West Germanic *hnutskallju
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*hnutskallju
  2. Old English · inherited fromhnutsċiell
  3. Middle English · inherited fromnotschelle
  4. English todaynutshell

From Middle English notschelle, from Old English hnutsċiell, from Proto-West Germanic *hnutskallju, equivalent to nut + shell. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Nuteskele, Nuteskil (“nutshell”), Dutch notenschaal (“nutshell”), German Nussschale (“nutshell”). The verb, as well as the legal book sense, is in reference to the phrase in a nutshell (“summarized”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.