husk

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The outer membranous or green envelope of some fruits or seeds, as that of a walnut or an ear of corn.
• noun A shell or outer covering, especially when considered worthless.
• noun A framework serving as a support.
• transitive verb To remove the husk from.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The greater dogfish, Scylliorhinus canicula.
• To strip off the external integument or covering of.
• To open or shuck, as oysters.
• Dry; parched.
• noun Huskiness.
• noun A company of hares.
• noun The verminous bronchitis of cattle, found particularly in calves, and caused by roundworms belonging to the species Metastrongylus micrurus.
• noun Corn-meal bran.
• noun A cup-shaped form composed of short leaves, common in Greek, Roman, and Renaissance decoration, from which rinceaux and other motives usually start. There are about 84 of these starting-points.
• noun The external covering of certain fruits or seeds of plants; the glume, epicarp, rind, or hull; in the United States, specifically, the outer covering of an ear of maize or Indian corn.
• noun Something resembling a husk, or serving the purpose of husks, as the membranous covering of an insect, or (sometimes) the shells of oysters.
• noun Figuratively, the outer covering of anything; that which incloses or conceals the reality or the essential part; hence, in the plural, refuse; waste.
• noun The frame which supports a run of millstones.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The external covering or envelope of certain fruits or seeds; glume; hull; rind; in the United States, especially applied to the covering of the ears of maize.
• noun The supporting frame of a run of millstones.
• noun (Bot.) the pods of the carob tree. See Carob.
• transitive verb To strip off the external covering or envelope of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb transitive To say huskily, to utter in a husky voice.
• noun The dry, leafy or stringy exterior of certain vegetables or fruits, which must be removed before eating the meat inside
• noun Any form of useless, dried-up, and subsequently worthless exterior of something
• verb transitive To remove husks from.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun material consisting of seed coverings and small pieces of stem or leaves that have been separated from the seeds
• noun outer membranous covering of some fruits or seeds
• verb remove the husks from