eldertongue

Modern English → Old English

Old English word for shell

4 headwords match “shell”, ranked by the scoring in the data pipeline. The five strongest follow; sciell ranks first.

  1. 1

    sciell

    score 24

    noun, feminine · strong ō-stem · 4 inflected forms

    shell — shell

    • opens the headword's definition
    • listed as an English descendant
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular sċiell
    genitive singular sċielle
    dative singular sċielle
    accusative singular sċielle
    nominative plural sċiella, sċielle
    genitive plural sċiella
  2. 2

    scealu

    score 15

    noun, feminine · strong ō-stem · 4 inflected forms

    shell — shell, husk

    • opens the headword's definition
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular sċealu
    genitive singular sċeale
    dative singular sċeale
    accusative singular sċeale
    nominative plural sċeala, sċeale
    genitive plural sċeala
  3. 3

    gewend

    score 8

    noun, neuter

    shell — a spiral shell

    • appears in the definition
  4. 4

    gehusod snegel

    score 4

    noun, feminine

    shell — a snail (with a shell, as a opposed to a shellless slug)

    • appears in the definition

How this ranking works

Scores are computed once, when the site is built, from the Wiktionary data. Every headword whose definitions mention “shell” gets the points below; the candidates are then sorted by total. The score is shown on each entry above so the order can be checked rather than trusted.

The English word opens the headword's definition+10
It appears later in the first definition+6
It appears in any definition+3
It is in the headword's links+2
It is listed as an English descendant (etymological evidence)+9
The headword has an inflection table+3
Part of speech is a proper noun−5
Part of speech is a verb (-ian derivations are noisy)−3
The headword is an alternative form−6
The first definition is longer than three words−2

A candidate has to be a real headword with its own entry: inflected forms and grammatical terminology (genitive, nominative, preterite, …) never appear here.

Not one of these?

The match may be a different sense of “shell”, or an inflected form rather than a headword. Look up the form directly — the entry page marks the grammatical case.

Candidates derived from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each entry links to its source page. · CC BY-SA 4.0 and attribution · CC BY-SA 4.0