star shell

1. 1.

   an artillery shell containing an illuminant

   Broaderflare

Questions about star shell

What does star shell mean?

star shell means "an artillery shell containing an illuminant".

Is star shell a common word?

star shell 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.