shelling

1. 1.

   the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target

   “they laid down a barrage in front of the advancing troops”

   “the shelling went on for hours without pausing”

   Synonymsbarragebarrage firebatterybombardment

   Broaderfire

Other forms of shelling

plural

shellings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about shelling

What does shelling mean?

shelling means "the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target".

How many syllables are in shelling?

shelling has 2 syllables: shel-ling. The stress falls on "shel". In IPA it is /ˈʃɛlɪŋ/.

What is another word for shelling?

Close synonyms include barrage, barrage fire, battery, bombardment. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is shelling a common word?

shelling is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.