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Definitions

shellac

[shuh-lak] / ʃəˈlæk /
VERB
batter
Synonyms
Antonyms
STRONG


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.

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It took the combination of shellac discs, electronic amplification and an automatic record-changer for National Automatic Music Company to manufacture the first 20-song multiplay machines in 1927.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 14, 2026

Human societies have used plastics that occur naturally in the environment for hundreds of years, in the form of rubber, horn and shellac.

From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2025

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

Outside’s been dunked in a bucket of shiny clear shellac.

From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

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

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

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

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

Marty comes of age in the Hill Valley of 1985, where vandals have shellacked the high school with so much graffiti that the janitors seem to have given up.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 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

The dolls were made of clay and shellacked with candle wax.

From "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo Anaya

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

Around the same time, England were getting their quadrennial shellacking in Australia.

From BBC ● Jun. 4, 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

It is the prospect of an almighty shellacking that prompts so many of the conversations about Sir Keir's future.

From BBC ● Dec. 30, 2025

She had to lay down various layers, like shellacking a Stradivarius.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides




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