shellac
Americannoun
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lac that has been purified and formed into thin sheets, used for making varnish shellac varnish by dissolving it in alcohol or a similar solvent.
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formerly, a phonograph record made of a breakable material containing shellac, especially one to be played at 78 r.p.m..
In the antique shop I found a stack of old shellacs with recordings of great wartime classics.
verb (used with object)
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shellacs,
present (3rd person singular)
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shellacked,
past participle, past
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shellacking
present participle
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to coat or treat with shellac.
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Slang.
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to defeat; trounce.
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to thrash soundly.
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noun
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a yellowish resin secreted by the lac insect, esp a commercial preparation of this used in varnishes, polishes, and leather dressings
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Also called: shellac varnish. a varnish made by dissolving shellac in ethanol or a similar solvent
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a gramophone record based on shellac
verb
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to coat or treat (an article) with a shellac varnish
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slang to defeat completely
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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shellacsimple
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shellacssimple
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have shellackedperfect
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has shellackedperfect
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am shellackingprogressive
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are shellackingprogressive
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is shellackingprogressive
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have been shellackingperfect progressive
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has been shellackingperfect progressive
Past
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shellackedsimple
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had shellackedperfect
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was shellackingprogressive
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were shellackingprogressive
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had been shellackingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of shellac
First recorded in 1705–15; shell + lac 1, translation of French laque en écailles “lac in thin plates”
Explanation
You might paint a layer of shellac, or varnish, on a bench built from reclaimed and stained wood, to protect it and give it a glossy sheen. This noun, mainly associated with a thin varnish, displays its origins plainly: the main ingredient is lac, a resinous substance secreted by some scale insects. Shellac started making the rounds in English in the 18th century and enjoyed a vogue a century later as the main constituent of phonograph records. It originally came from the French laque en écailles, or "lac in thin plates."
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.
See Examples For:
These years of collaboration led to several of his original compositions being pressed into 78 rpm shellac records.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
In 1887 German-American inventor Emile Berliner invented the flat shellac disk, quickly saw its advantage for mass production, and patented a device to play them, the gramophone, that same year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026
Another of them, rendered almost invisibly in shellac on deep cobalt blue moiré, circles around to give the exhibition its trenchant title: “Now then, as I was about to say …”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024
Trompe l’oeil artists were also highly in demand in the decorative arts, and wealthy patrons would hire peintres-décorateurs to shellac their drawing rooms with imitation marble and porphyry.
From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2022
Ebright, Bolles noticed, had been making more than the usual amount of noise in the Bay Area press lately about how thoroughly his freshmen were going to shellac Washington.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Ms. Zacarías shellacs a thin veneer of seriousness on the play by having the actors intone into microphones various statistics vaguely pertaining to the plotline.
From New York Times ● Oct. 7, 2015
Though the sound is monaural, it has been restored lovingly and retains much of the warmth that characterized the best of Europe's prewar 78-r.p.m. shellacs.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sculptor Fingesten works chiefly in concrete and stucco, gets his variety of texture and color by mixing pigments into the wet cement or plaster, coating some figures with beeswax, finishing others with shellacs and acids.
From Time Magazine Archive
He runs three miles, showers, shellacs his white-gray hair and hops into the back of a black government sedan that waits outside his home in suburban Virginia.
From Time Magazine Archive
There's ice, usually, lots of it, that shellacs the sidewalks and windshields that then need to be scraped.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
Retail outposts, brick-and-mortar food joints, and text-based media have not been thriving sectors for a while now, but they’ve been especially shellacked in the weird post-pandemic economy.
From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2026
Her best friend, Max, who was unofficially adopted by Suzanna’s parents and is shellacked in cynicism as played by the excellent Alden Ehrenreich, exhorts her to pull herself together and face her “big girl problems.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026
It’s an oddly false performance that comes across even stiffer as she’s been shellacked with thick makeup and wig-like hair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2025
Three months ago, the Scots were shellacked 3-0 at home by Greece, halting any sort of momentum built from three wins on the spin.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2025
It was an old cigar box that had been pasted over with colorful papers, and then shellacked with varnish: a just-because present.
From "Girl in the Blue Coat" by Monica Hesse
Even Curaçao, the smallest country ever to play in the World Cup, bounced back from a 7-1 shellacking at the hands of Germany to secure its first ever point with a draw against Ecuador.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
The Lakers lost by almost 30 points per game in their four-game series against the Thunder during the regular season, and one of the games was a 43-point shellacking.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
The shellacking that big bank stocks have taken as of late could be an ominous sign about what’s next for the economy.
From Barron's ● Mar. 18, 2026
North Carolina’s season began on Labor Day with a 48-14 shellacking by TCU in prime time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2025
He once coxed a Washington crew to a humiliating fifteen-length shellacking of California.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
