basket case
a hopeless situation, person, or system
TRANSLATION
hoffnungsloser Fall
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Haiti: An economic BASKET CASE. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas. According to the World Bank, Haiti's economy has declined by an average of 0.2% per year during the 1980s, and shrunk by 0.4% per year in the 1990s.
(BBC News - 1st March 2004)
(BBC News - 1st March 2004)
Did you
know?
basket case
1. Slang. One that is in a completely hopeless or useless condition.
2. Offensive Slang. A person, especially a soldier, who has had all four limbs amputated.
In popular usage basket case refers to someone in a hopeless mental condition, but in origin it had a physical meaning. In the grim slang of the British army during World War I, it referred to a quadruple amputee. This is one of several expressions that first became popular in World War I, or that entered American army slang from British English at that time.
You could use this idiom to refer to a totally hopeless project or enterprise:
"After all the great hopes at its launch, I'm afraid that the product has become a basket case."
1. Slang. One that is in a completely hopeless or useless condition.
2. Offensive Slang. A person, especially a soldier, who has had all four limbs amputated.
In popular usage basket case refers to someone in a hopeless mental condition, but in origin it had a physical meaning. In the grim slang of the British army during World War I, it referred to a quadruple amputee. This is one of several expressions that first became popular in World War I, or that entered American army slang from British English at that time.
You could use this idiom to refer to a totally hopeless project or enterprise:
"After all the great hopes at its launch, I'm afraid that the product has become a basket case."
