shell-shocked
14
8.4
- adjective
- /ˈʃɛlˌʃɑkt/
:
conmocionado
- After witnessing the horrors of war, many soldiers return home feeling shell-shocked and unable to adjust to civilian life.
- shell-shocked look
- shell-shocked soldier
- still shell-shocked
And talk about shell shocked talk about.
- And talk about shell shocked talk about.
Examples
-
Harriman pales at the sight and seems shell-shocked by the destruction of the ship.
Fiction book (1994) -
Yesterday was the oddest day... lots of shell-shocked folks wandering around.
Blog text (19) -
" Heard tell he was what they call shell-shocked in the war."
Fiction book (1993) -
Deep concern about what's happening to the young men who come back shell shocked, if not in body bags?
-
Many of those directly involved seem shell-shocked and are still struggling for answers.
Blog text (26) -
In those days, only the shell-shocked were treated or put in government asylums.
Blog text (11) -
The mother was clearly shell-shocked as she told her story, and it was heartbreaking to hear.
Blog text (17) -
I want to believe that I won't end up like my mother and her sisters... with all their men dead, or maimed, or shell shocked.
-
When it was over, the worst of it, they had surveyed the apartment in a daze, shell-shocked.
Fiction book (1999) -
Bruce Barnes had spent the last several minutes telling Judd and the three other shell-shocked kids his own story.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
17
3.9
A very stunned and numb feeling after a sudden bad event
5
7.5
A severe emotional and physical reaction after a long time in war or heavy fighting
How Shocked
Surface Forms
Morphology
shell-shocked = shell shock (semi-transparent) = shell + shock + ed
Formed from the noun phrase 'shell shock' with '-ed' to make an adjective; the components hint at traumatic impact but the idiomatic medical/clinical sense linked to warfare is not fully predictable by a learner.
Etymology
Shell-shocked comes from World War I, when soldiers near exploding shells were left with shock, meaning 'stunned' or 'badly hurt' after the blasts. That's why shell-shocked now describes someone who is deeply shocked or emotionally shaken by a sudden event.