shell out

British

verb

informal (adverb) to pay out or hand over (money)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

shell out Idioms

Pay, hand over, as in We had to shell out $1,000 for auto repairs. This expression transfers taking a seed such as a pea or nut out of its pod or shell to taking money out of one's pocket. [Colloquial; c. 1800]

Etymology

Origin of shell out

C19: from _shell (in the sense: to remove from a pod or (figuratively) a purse)

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:

shell out

Some companies shell out six figures for high-end health insurance, doctor visits and concierge medicine for executives.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026

Unable to shell out the additional fees, Ko Myint dropped out of the programme despite having been offered a place to study nursing in Helsinki.

From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026

Last year, business owners signaled they weren’t willing to shell out more every year to make it happen.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026

If you want to make a 20% down payment on a $750,000 home, the recommended percentage to avoid private mortgage insurance, you’d need to shell out $150,000.

From MarketWatch ● May 29, 2026

He said that the magazine wasn’t prepared to shell out $65,000 but that he and the other editors thought the commercialization of Everest was an important story.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

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