shell out

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shell out (third-person singular simple present shells out, present participle shelling out, simple past and past participle shelled out)

1. (informal, transitive, intransitive) To pay money, to disburse; especially, to pay a great deal of money.

   Synonyms: cough up, fork out, fork over

   Do you think we should shell out for the extra options package?

   • 2016 October 24, Owen Gibson, “Is the unthinkable happening – are people finally switching the football off?”, in The Guardian‎, London:

     BT shelled out almost £1bn for the Champions League over the same period, while the FA has just brought in around £820m over six seasons for the international rights to the FA Cup alone.

   • 2022 May 27, Clifford Krauss, “Gas Prices Hit New Highs as Summer Driving Season Starts”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     With the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinding on, drivers will have to shell out a lot more to fill up their cars as the summer travel season begins this Memorial Day weekend.

   • 2023 June 14, Mel Holley, “Network News: One year on: rail strikes still at a stalemate”, in RAIL, number 985, pages 10–11:

     "While their rhetoric continues, this is merely a diversion to the very real financial challenge the industry is facing, with taxpayers still shelling out up to an extra £175 million a month to keep trains running by making up the 20% shortfall in revenue post-COVID.

2. (computing, especially Unix) To use a program's "shell escape" function to execute an unrelated command or to invoke a subsidiary, interactive shell.

shell out (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) A game played on a billiard table, a variation of pool.
   • 1875, George Worsley, Advice to the Young!, page 32:

     I have more than once had to lend a commercial money to pay his fare home; as he had played shell-out and lost the lot.

• (the game): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary
• Jonathon Green (2024) “shell out v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• slut hole, sluthole