How to Use shell shock in a Sentence

shell shock

noun
Definition of shell shocknext
  • But the disorder has evolved since the days of shell shock.
    — Eleanor Cummins, The Atlantic, 18 Oct. 2021
  • Consumers have been through a lot in a short amount of time, to say the least, and a degree of shell shock cannot be ruled out.
    — Michele Markham, Forbes, 15 Aug. 2022
  • Got me shell shock, feel less of a man, violated ya feel me?
    — Jason Dearen, sun-sentinel.com, 19 Nov. 2021
  • There is a sense of shell shock, likely some residual effects of PTSD.
    — John P. Darcy, Vogue, 27 Dec. 2018
  • Over the spring and summer, restaurants that survived the initial shell shock of Covid-19 pivoted to takeout and outdoor dining.
    — NBC News, 29 Nov. 2020
  • Polchin wonders if the men, many of whom were veterans of the First World War, were in shell shock—though an exact diagnosis now hardly matters.
    — Caleb Crain, The New Yorker, 20 June 2019
  • The four-year nightmare, which started three years before the U.S. got involved, engulfed dozens of nations, redrew the map of Europe and introduced the world to new horrors such as chemical weapons and shell shock.
    — Laura Blasey, Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2022
  • Seemingly overnight, the field of war psychiatry emerged and a new term—shell shock—appeared to describe a range of mental injuries, from facial tics to an inability to speak.
    — Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, 16 June 2020
  • Dirk Bogarde plays the officer assigned to defend the young man, who obviously is suffering from shell shock.
    — Susan King, Los Angeles Times, 1 Jan. 2020
  • Medical workers also face their own version of shell shock from the psychological strain of seeing so many patients die.
    — Stephen Collinson, CNN, 24 Mar. 2020
  • What shell shock was to the soldiers returning from World War I, unemployment and economic insecurity were to the middle and working classes.
    — Susanna Lee, The Conversation, 1 Apr. 2020
  • Iya, the gentle giant nicknamed Beanpole (first-timer Viktoria Miroshnichenko), was discharged for shell shock and suffers strange paralytic blackouts as a result of the trauma.
    — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Nov. 2019
  • As documented by the humanitarian NGO Proliska, which is monitoring the conflict zone, one of the shells struck a kindergarten, leaving two employees with shell shock—but not injuring any of the children that were there.
    — David Meyer, Fortune, 17 Feb. 2022
  • With these weapons came an ever-expanding vocabulary to depict their hellish consequences, from shell shock to radiation poisoning to Agent Orange Syndrome.
    — David Oshinsky, The New York Review of Books, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Long before the official recognition of PTSD in 1980, veterans quietly suffered with uncompensated disabilities related to combat stress known as shell shock for much of their post-military lives.
    — Jason A. Higgins, The Conversation, 17 Aug. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shell shock.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: