nutshell

From Middle English notschelle, from Old English hnutsċiell. Equivalent to nut +‎ shell. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “needs more explanation on sense 2”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈnʌt.ʃɛl/

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nutshell (plural nutshells)

1. The shell that surrounds the kernel of a nut.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.:

     For men be now tratlers and tellers of tales;
     What tidings at Totnam, what newis in Wales,
     What ſhippis are ſailing to Scalis Malis?
     And all is not worth a couple of nut ſhalis.

2. A short book summarizing an area of law.
3. (nautical) A small boat; a boat considered small in comparison to the seas.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 182:

     [A]t last the fishing-line stood straight out behind, and the stone weights jumped along the tops of the billows, while the seas - notwithstanding the guiding hand of the pilot sought to avoid them - broke over our little nutshell, and sent the spray high above mast and sail.

nutshell (third-person singular simple present nutshells, present participle nutshelling, simple past and past participle nutshelled)

1. (transitive) To summarize (from the term in a nutshell).