·noun A shell or husk; a cod or pod.
II. Shale ·vt To take off the shell or coat of; to Shell.
III. Shale ·noun A fine-grained sedimentary rock of a thin, laminated, and often friable, structure.
to peel ; perhaps to shell. Also to slide down, as the side of a bank. N. ...
A glossary of provincial and local words used in England by Francis Grose
·- A variety of shale or clay slate, containing iron pyrites, the decomposition of which leads to th...
Webster's Dictionary of the English Language