IN A NUTSHELL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of In a nutshell

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/ɪn ə nˈətʃˌɛl/ Listen

noun

Nutshell n.

The shell or hard external covering in which the kernel of a nut is inclosed.

Hence, a thing of little compass, or of little value.

(Zool.) A shell of the genus Nucula.

in a nutshell in a summarized and very abbreviated form; of statments, descriptions, reports, and other communications; as, to describe the convention in a nutshell.

To be in a nutshell or To lie in a nutshell, to be within a small compass; to admit of very brief or simple determination or statement. "The remedy lay in a nutshell."

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Etymology of 'In a nutshell'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"In a nutshell" Quotes from Famous Books

... might have said that his mind moved in rather narrow limits. But then within those limits he was so ruddy and jubilant that I could not but remember something Shakspeare says about the ease of being bounded in a nutshell and yet counting one's self king of infinite space,—were it not for bad dreams. These "bad dreams" had never retarded the British digestion of Sir Joseph Barley. No American citizen could, by any possibility, be so shut in measureless ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... in a nutshell; it is this:—Shall man submit to the revealed will of God, or to his own will? That is the naked question when the fog of confused ideas and unmeaning words is ...

— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

... license Diurnals, because he prohibits learning and books." He characterises the Diurnal as "a puny chronicle, scarce pin-feathered with the wings of time; it is a history in sippets; the English Iliads in a nutshell; the Apocryphal Parliament's Book of Maccabees ...

— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... the recalcitrant. "If you don't stop eating that mustache you'll have stomach trouble that no Scotch whisky will ever cure. The whole thing is in a nutshell," a sly humor creeping into his eyes. "I am tired of writing ephemeral things. I want to write something that ...

— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... matter in a nutshell. He had done nothing carelessly; he was touching off our conflict with flashes of genius. He was the man who had roused in me last night the fiercest passions of my life, and yet this morning he had saved me from death, and, though he was still my sworn ...

— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

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