Meaning of shell shock | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A psychiatric condition characterized by fatigue caused by battle; it is not a current diagnosis in medicine, but it corresponds largely with the current diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
   uncountable
2. A person with the condition.
   colloquial, countable, uncountable
3. A stunning shock.
   broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable
4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shell, shock.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“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!!”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

CEFR level