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Definition 2024

shell_shock

shell shock

See also: shellshock and shell-shock

English

Alternative forms

shellshock, shell-shock

Noun

shell shock ‎(countable and uncountable, plural shell shocks)

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.
(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.
(uncountable) A psychiatric condition characterized by fatigue caused by battle.
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

(psychiatric condition caused by battle): battle fatigue, combat fatigue

Related terms

shell shocked (adjective)

Verb

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

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.