in a nutshell
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Describing something briefly and concisely
Literally: inside a nutshell
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ There you are, Mr Barnett: the life of Willy Morpurgo in a nutshell.
And all of this, in a nutshell, is why I worry about our leaders.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in a nutshell” mean?
Describing something briefly and concisely Literally: inside a nutshell
Is “in a nutshell” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.