Shell colors - OneLook

Literary analysis:

The term “shell” in literature is imbued with layers of meaning, ranging from the physical to the metaphorical. In some works, it denotes a literal protective covering, as seen with the turtle of the edible green turtle in [1] or the opercular valves described in [2] and the delicate egg-shell in [3]. Beyond its concrete sense, “shell” also becomes an emblem of brevity or confinement—the phrase “in a nut-shell” encapsulates an entire legal science in [4] and [5], while it symbolizes a barrier or a protective retreat, as hinted at when one character retreats into her own shell in [6] or is reduced to something fragile, like an egg-shell, under duress in [7]. The word’s versatility extends further to capture moments of explosive force or decisive action, such as the impact of a bomb-shell in [8] or the act of dislodging one’s shell as a metaphor for personal transformation in [9].

It was a turtle of the species Midas, the edible green turtle, so called from the color both of its shell and fat.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
The OPERCULAR VALVES of Cirripedes are those which close the aperture of the shell.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin
The egg, it may be mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen’s egg.
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
In a nut-shell, there's the state of the case.'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
It looked as though he would be crushed like an egg-shell, while the sound of their pounding was like reverberating thunder.
— from Korean folk tales : by Pang Im and Yuk Yi
BROWN SIR James’s words came like a bomb-shell.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
It made such violent efforts that it got out of its shell.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

This tab, the new OneLook "color thesaurus", is a work in progress. It draws from a data set of more than 2000 color names gathered from sources around the Web, and an analysis of how they are referenced in English texts.

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