Synonyms

in a nutshell

Idioms

Concisely, in a few words, as in Here's our proposal—in a nutshell, we want to sell the business to you. This hyperbolic expression alludes to the Roman writer Pliny's description of Homer's Iliad being copied in so tiny a hand that it could fit in a nutshell. For a time it referred to anything compressed, but from the 1500s on it referred mainly to written or spoken words.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"It will be Starmerism in a nutshell – an extraordinarily painful route to complete exoneration," they said.

From BBC

Dimon, in a nutshell, told him to stop lying on TV, according to people familiar with the conversation.

From The Wall Street Journal

When asked if it was an epidemic the government was failing to cope with, he responded "in a nutshell, yes".

From BBC

To sum up their misfortune in a nutshell, Bradley was taken off at half-time after a knock for Isak.

From BBC

That right there kind of sums up my life in a nutshell.

From Literature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023