shell shock

plural shell shocks · alternative shellshock · alternative shell-shock

1. historicaluncountableA psychiatric condition characterized by fatigue caused by battle, corresponding largely with the current diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

   There's a condition in combat—most people know it by now. It occurs when a soldier's nervous system has reached the breaking point. In World War I, it was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. Shell shock!!

   2004, George Carlin, “EUPHEMISMS: Shell Shock to PTSD”, in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 40

   Synonyms: battle fatigue, combat fatigue

2. colloquialcountableuncountableA person with the condition.

   Most nurses found the helplessness of "the shell shocks" painful and "pitiful."

   2004, Susan Zeiger, In Uncle Sam's Service: Women Workers with the American Expeditionary Force, 1917—1919, page 131

   2 more examples

   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.

   1920, Phillip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told, published 2009, page 350

   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.

   1943, Arthur Graham Butler, The Australian Army Medical Services in the War of 1914-1918, volume 3, page 107

3. broadlycountablefigurativelyuncountableA stunning shock.

   "[…]Think of me / With all these psychic shell shocks — first the war, / Its great emotions, then this Elenor."

   2004, Edgar Lee Masters, Barrett Bays: Domesday Book, page 322

   1 more example

   But while malls killed 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.

   2010, Roberta Brandes Gratz, The Battle for Gotham, page 21

4. countableuncountableUsed other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shell, shock.

   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.

   1967, Bernard Share, Inish, page 99

present singular third person shell shocks · participle present shell shocking · participle past shell shocked · past shell shocked · alternative shellshock · alternative shell-shock

1. figurativelytransitiveTo stun or debilitate as by a shock.

   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.

   3 more examples

   It was General du Pont's 'forty-five' which bellowed and thundered and echoed through Fifth avenue, scaring horses and shell shocking pedestrians.

   1919, Bulletin of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, numbers 148-152, page xx

   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.

   Barry sounded lighter, his spirits lifting slightly from the shell shocking humiliation and helplessness he'd been feeling.

   2010, John E. Shephard, Jr, Cottage Lake Soliloquy, page 10