A device for breaking the shells of nuts, such as walnuts, pecan nuts, cashew nuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, where such device includes a sleeve with a through hole along an axis, elastic gripping means which can exert a force in a preferential direction coupled to the end of the sleeve in a manner such that the preferential direction is substantially coincident with the axis of a base, and a means for rotatably mounting the sleeve with respect to the base about an axis which is perpendicular to the axis, in a manner such that the sleeve is capable of taking up a first position in which the plane of the second end of the sleeve rests substantially on the face of the base and a second position in which the plane of the end of the sleeve makes a non-zero angle with the plane of the face of the base.