• IPA: /hʌl/

hull (plural hulls)

1. The outer covering of a fruit or seed.
2. Any covering.

• (outer covering of fruit or seed): peel, husk, shell

• French: coque, cosse
• Portuguese: casca
• Russian: шелуха́
• Spanish: hollejo, vaina

hull (hulls, present participle hulling; past and past participle hulled)

1. To remove the outer covering of a fruit or seed.

   She sat on the back porch hulling peanuts.

• (to remove hull of a fruit or seed): peel, husk, shell, shuck

• French: écosser, décortiquer
• Portuguese: descascar
• Russian: очища́ть

hull (plural hulls)

1. The body or frame of a vessel, such as a ship or plane.
   • 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, Quatrain 60, 1808, The Works of John Dryden, Volume 9, page 115 ↗,

     Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light, / And through the yielding planks a passage find.

2. (mathematics, geometry, of a set A) The smallest set that possesses a particular property (such as convexity) and contains every point of A; slightly more formally, the intersection of all sets which possess the specified property and of which A is a subset.

   The orthogonal convex hull of an orthogonal polygon is the smallest orthogonally convex polygon that encloses the original polygon.

   holomorphically convex hull; affine hull; injective hull

• (frame of a vessel) en (of a winged aircraft)
• (smallest set containing a given set of points) span

• French: coque
• German: Rumpf
• Italian: scafo
• Portuguese: casco
• Russian: ко́рпус
• Spanish: casco

hull (hulls, present participle hulling; past and past participle hulled)

1. (obsolete, intransitive, nautical) To drift; to be carried by the impetus of wind or water on the ship's hull alone, with sails furled.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 1, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     We goe not, but we are carried: as things that flote, now gliding gently, now hulling violently, according as the water is, either stormy or calme.

   • c. 1612, William Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act II, Scene 4,

     […] Thus hulling in

     The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer

     Toward this remedy, whereupon we are

     Now present here together:

   • 1716, Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 2nd edition edited by Samuel Johnson, London: J. Payne, 1756, Part I, p. 8,

     In this virtuous voyage of life hull not about like the ark, without the use of rudder, mast, or sail, and bound for no port.

2. (transitive) To hit (a ship) in the hull with cannon fire etc.
   • 1774, George Shelvocke, The Voyage of Captain Shelvock Round the World in David Henry (ed.), An Historical Account of All the Voyages Round the World, Performed by English Navigators, London: F. Newbery, Volume 2, p. 163,

     During this action, we had not a man killed or wounded, although the enemy often hulled us, and once, in particular, a shot coming into one of our ports, dismounted one of our guns between decks […]

1. A placename:
   1. A river in East Riding of Yorkshire, England, which flows into the Humber.
   2. The common name of Kingston upon Hull, .
   3. Hull, Quebec: .
   4. Any of various cities in the United States:
      1. An unincorporated community in DeSoto County, Florida.
      2. A city in Madison County, Georgia.
      3. A village in Pike County, Illinois.
      4. A city in Sioux County, Iowa.
      5. A town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts.
      6. An unincorporated community in Emmons County, North Dakota.
      7. An unincorporated community/and/CDP in Liberty County, Texas.
      8. An unincorporated community in McDowell County, West Virginia.
      9. A town in Marathon County, Wisconsin.
      10. A town in Portage County, Wisconsin.
2. (countable) Surname

• Russian: Гулль

• French: Hull