pearly-shelled mussel

1. 1.

   the pearly lining of the dark shells is a source of mother-of-pearl

   Broaderfreshwater mussel

   Part ofUnio

Questions about pearly-shelled mussel

What does pearly-shelled mussel mean?

pearly-shelled mussel means "the pearly lining of the dark shells is a source of mother-of-pearl".

Is pearly-shelled mussel a common word?

pearly-shelled mussel 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.