Word.ws English Dictionary

shellshocked

shellshocked is the alternative form of shell-shocked.

Meaning of shell-shocked

Adjective

shell-shocked (comparative more shell-shocked, superlative most shell-shocked)

  1. (dated) Stunned or mentally unbalanced by prolonged stress such as experienced in combat or under fire (shell-fire); suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
    • Glenn Kilbourne had returned from France early that fall, shell-shocked and gassed, and otherwise incapacitated for service in the army—a wreck of his former sterling self.1922, Zane Grey, chapter 1, in The Call of the Canyon
  2. (figuratively) Confused as a result of a traumatic experience.
    • With inflationary pressures easing and economic concerns mounting, shell-shocked investors are seeking the protection of government securities.2008 December 18, Luke Mullins, “The Top 5 Housing-Market Hopes for 2009”, in U.S.News & World Report, retrieved 22 Dec 2008

Questions about shellshocked

What is shellshocked the alternative form of?
Shellshocked is the alternative form of shell-shocked.

Words near shellshocked in the dictionary

  1. shellscript
  2. shellscripts
  3. Shellses
  4. shellsful
  5. shellshock
  6. shellshocked
  7. shellsort
  8. shellsorts
  9. shellsuit
  10. shellsuited
  11. shellsuits

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shellshocked (page history and authors); shell-shocked (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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