in a nutshell

1. 1.

   summed up briefly

   “gave the facts in a nutshell”

   “just tell me the story in a nutshell”

   “explained the situation in a nutshell”

Questions about in a nutshell

What does in a nutshell mean?

in a nutshell means "summed up briefly".

Is in a nutshell a common word?

in a nutshell is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.