Definify.com

Definition 2024


shell_shock

shell shock

See also: shellshock and shell-shock

English

Alternative forms

Noun

shell shock (countable and uncountable, plural shell shocks)

  1. Used other than as an idiom: see shell, shock.
    • 1967, Bernard Share, Inish, page 99,
      The other was to go on, to the next drink or the bed or the grass outside, where the party-noises ebbed and flowed like shell-shocks and the Southern Cross burnt crookedly above.
  2. (figuratively) A stunning shock.
    • 2004, Edgar Lee Masters, Barrett Bays, Domesday Book, page 322,
      " [] Think of me / With all these psychic shell shocks — first the war, / Its great emotions, then this Elenor."
    • 2011, Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Battle for Gotham, page 21,
      But while malls kllled much of downtown America, they only partially injured New York City. The density of this city guaranteed a less dramatic impact than the shell shocks that crippled so many other cities.
  3. (uncountable) A psychiatric condition characterized by fatigue caused by battle.
  4. A person with the condition.
    • 1920, Phillip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, 2009, page 350,
      I passed through the shell-shock wards and a yard where the "shell-shocks" sat about, dumb, or making queer, foolish noises, or staring with a look of animal fear in their eyes.
    • 1943, Arthur Graham Butler, The Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914-1918, Volume 3, page 107,
      Of the 79 officer casualties 10 were "shell-shocks", or about 12 per cent, of the whole. Of the 10 shell-shocks 4 were sent to C.C.S. and 6 to Corps Rest Station.
    • 2004, Susan Zeiger, In Uncle Sam's Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 1917—1919, page 131,
      Most nurses found the helplessness of "the shell shocks" painful and "pitiful."

Synonyms

Related terms

See also

Translations

Verb

shell shock (third-person singular simple present shell shocks, present participle shell shocking, simple past and past participle shell shocked)

  1. To stun or debilitate as by a shock.
    • 1919, Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, Issues 148-152, page xx,
      It was General du Pont's 'forty-five' which bellowed and thundered and echoed through Fifth avenue, scaring horses and shell shocking pedestrians.
    • 1999, Brother Gilbert (Phillip F. Cairnes), Harry Rothgerber (editor), Young Babe Ruth, page 146,
      The crack of the home run that the batsman cherishes shell-shocks the nerves of the pitcher who threw it.
    • 2008, Linda Mi-Suk Enos, The Korean Palace of Honolulu, Condensed (6 x 9) Version, page 462,
      Silently Melissa listened to her mother as she softly convincingly spoke the raw naked truth the best way she knew how without shell shocking the girl.
    • 2010, John E. Shephard, Jr, Cottage Lake Soliloquy, page 10,
      Barry sounded lighter, his spirits lifting slightly from the shell shocking humiliation and helplessness he'd been feeling.

See also