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, ambitransitive) 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?

   • 2007 October 29, Patricia McDonagh, “Top 10 bosses in semi-state firms cost total of €2m a year”, in Irish Independent:

     TAXPAYERS are shelling out more than €2m annually to pay for the salaries of 10 high-profile CEOs employed in commercial semi-state bodies.

   • 2010, Robyn Catchlove, Somewhere Down a Crazy River, page 18:

     Then, after shelling out significant cash on sufficient 44-gallon drums of polyester and epoxy resin and massive rolls of specific density fibreglass material, we proceeded to wax down and lay up the hull.

   • 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.

   • 2020 December 3, Anna Rahmanan, “Christmas trees are, indeed, more expensive this year than last”, in Time Out‎:

     Here's an interesting effect of a global pandemic that has forced Americans to stay home for nearly 10 months: with less vacation and dine-out options, folks have more money saved up then usual and, given the virtually endless amount of time spent staring at their own four walls, they seem to be more willing than usual to shell out some extra cash to spruce up their abodes.

   • 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
• “shell out v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

• slut hole, sluthole