basket-case

basket case

noun Slang.
1.
Offensive. a person who has had all four limbs amputated.
2.
a person who is helpless or incapable of functioning normally, especially due to overwhelming stress, anxiety, or the like.
3.
anything that is impaired or incapable of functioning: Right after the war the conquered nation was considered an economic basket case.

Origin:
1915–20

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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World English Dictionary
basket case
 
n
1.  a person who is suffering from extreme nervous strain; nervous wreck
2.  taboo chiefly (US), (Canadian) a person who has had both arms and both legs amputated
3.  a.  someone or something that is incapable of functioning normally
 b.  (as modifier): a basket-case economy

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Basket-case is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

basket case
1919, Amer.Eng., originally a reference to quadriplegics as a result of catastrophic wounds suffered in World War I (the military vehemently denied there were any such in its hospitals), from basket + case. Probably literal, i.e., stuck in a basket,
but basket had colloquial connotations of poverty (begging) and helplessness long before this. Figurative sense of "person emotionally unable to cope" is from 1967.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary

basket case definition


  1. n.
    a person who is a nervous wreck. (Formerly referred to a person who is totally physically disabled.) : After that meeting, I was practically a basket case.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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