shelly

From shell +‎ -y.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɛli/
• Rhymes: -ɛli
• Homophone: Shelley

shelly (comparative shellier, superlative shelliest)

1. Composed of the shells of dead marine creatures
   • 2000 June 16, Karl W. Flessa, “Learning from the Dead”, in Science‎, volume 288, number 5473, →DOI, pages 1971–1972:

     After all, we live today in an unusual world: sea level is low, the continents are dispersed, ice occupies the poles, and the shelly fauna of the oceans is composed largely of aragonite rather than calcite.

   • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson , and John Barber , →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     the shelly shore

2. Resembling, or comprising, the shell of a mollusc
   • 1818, Charles Lamb, “On the Sight of Swans in Kensington Garden”, in The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb‎:

     Shrined are your offspring in a chrystal cradle, / Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst / Her shelly prison.

   • 1906, Harry Caulton Reeks, Diseases of the Horse's Foot‎:

     It is seen commonly in connection with flat-foot, and where the horn of the wall is thin and shelly.

3. Abounding with shells.
   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: Richard Field, , →OCLC:

     the snail, whose tender horns being hit
     Shrinks backward in his shelly cave.

• Hysell