Reddit has the most concise answer

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/41u5hw/comment...

> A terminal is a physical device with a keyboard and screen connected to a computer running various OS types. A tty is the Unix device name for a physical or virtual terminal connection. A shell is the Unix command interpreter. A console is a generic term for a primary i/o device or interface. In unix terms the console is where the boot/startup messages are sent to. After bootup the console effectively becomes a terminal.