Noun
A psychiatric condition characterized by fatigue caused by battle, corresponding largely with the current diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Usage- Historical
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
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!!
A person with the condition.
Usage- Colloquial
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
More examples (2)
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."
A stunning shock.
Usage- broadly
- Countable
- Figurative
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
"[…]Think of me / With all these psychic shell shocks — first the war, / Its great emotions, then this Elenor."
More examples (1)
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.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shell, shock.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
-
More examples (1)
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.
Verb
To stun or debilitate as by a shock.
Usage- Figurative
- Transitive
- Related words
- Examples
-
It was General du Pont's 'forty-five' which bellowed and thundered and echoed through Fifth avenue, scaring horses and shell shocking pedestrians.
More examples (2)
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.
Barry sounded lighter, his spirits lifting slightly from the shell shocking humiliation and helplessness he'd been feeling.
Noun
a mental disorder caused by stress of active warfare
- Broader terms