noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A sorting algorithm that starts by sorting pairs of elements that are far apart from each other, then progressively reduces the gap between elements to be compared. uncountable
2. 2
   Alternative form of Shellsort. alt-of, alternative, countable, uncountable

Etymology

From Shell + sort, after Douglas Shell, who published the first version in 1959.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.