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Shell shock
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
"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!!"
- 2 a mental disorder caused by stress of active warfare wordnet
- 3 A person with the condition. colloquial, countable, uncountable
"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."
- 4 A stunning shock. broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable
""[…]Think of me / With all these psychic shell shocks — first the war, / Its great emotions, then this Elenor.""
- 5 Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shell, shock. countable, uncountable
"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."
- 1 To stun or debilitate as by a shock. figuratively, transitive
"It was General du Pont's 'forty-five' which bellowed and thundered and echoed through Fifth avenue, scaring horses and shell shocking pedestrians."
Etymology
Well attested during World War I. Attempts to find attestations that predate that war seem fruitless. The ambiguity of reference to a range of phenomena, from physical concussion due to the explosively loud noise of artillery fire (on both the sending and receiving ends) to psychological reactions to violence and maiming, was present in the term's use from the start. In 21st-century wars there is continued evidence that long, close exposure to the noise of artillery can cause traumatic brain injury even in soldiers who did not take incoming artillery fire. But most discussions of shell shock in World War I concerned combat stress as well.
Well attested during World War I. Attempts to find attestations that predate that war seem fruitless. The ambiguity of reference to a range of phenomena, from physical concussion due to the explosively loud noise of artillery fire (on both the sending and receiving ends) to psychological reactions to violence and maiming, was present in the term's use from the start. In 21st-century wars there is continued evidence that long, close exposure to the noise of artillery can cause traumatic brain injury even in soldiers who did not take incoming artillery fire. But most discussions of shell shock in World War I concerned combat stress as well.
See also for "shell shock"
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