shell variable

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

shell variable

   <programming, operating system> One of the {variables}
   accessible to a {Unix} {shell} process, including {environment
   variables} (e.g. $HOME), {command line arguments} (e.g. $1)
   and local variables (e.g. $input_file).  Other {operating
   systems} have similar variables.

   (1999-01-26)