# Where does the term "Basket Case" come from?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 1, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526 "2006-02-01T17:37:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/1 "2006-02-01T17:37:37Z")
I seem to recall it was in reference to a practice in early insane asylums in which the attendants would put some of their patients in baskets because they were so far gone that a basket was good enough as far as “accomodations” were concerned.
I tried Word Detective to no avail and Googled the term and got back nothing but Green Day lyrics, a bad series of horror films, and a whole slew of cutsey on-line gift basket sellers.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/2 "2006-02-01T17:50:53Z")
From the “baskets” (enclosed stretchers) used to carry battlefield casualties to the nearest army hospital.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/3 "2006-02-01T17:52:44Z")
I should add that “basket case” originally meant any person seriously disabled by combat injuries.
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### Author:  [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/4 "2006-02-01T17:53:05Z")
Here’s the entry on [[Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com)]([http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=basket](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=basket) case):
> [@](#):
>
> 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. Some of these words reflect technical inventions and innovations of the time, such as parachute, blimp, tank, and bomber, and still have clear military associations. Others have lost most or all of their military connotations, such as ace, chow, slacker, and dud.
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### Author:  [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/5 "2006-02-01T18:05:44Z")
Um. Sure I guess I could have looked in a dictionary, but that’s WAY too obvious.
:smack:
Thanks for quenching my curiosity.
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/6 "2006-02-01T18:08:54Z")
Figure 3-27 on [this page](http://www.tpub.com/content/medical/14295/css/14295_132.htm) shows a basket stretcher.
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/7 "2006-02-01T18:35:19Z")
I always reserve the use of ‘basket case’, almost out of respect for the people who are/were actual basket cases. After watching the real “China Beach”, in which a China Beach nurse decribed what a basket case really was:
A patient who had lost both arms and both legs. She elaborated to say the worst basket case she nursed had no arms, no legs (as defined), and was blind and deaf from his injuries.
I don’t use ‘basket case’ even in slang anymore. Just doesn’t seem right.
War is heck. ☹
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/8 "2006-02-01T19:00:00Z")
A fictional account is presented in Dalton Trumbo’s _Johnny Got His Gun_, incidentally.
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/9 "2006-02-02T18:44:35Z")
There is a much less grim modern meaning for the phrase. When the owner of a machine takes it apart, realizes he can’t fix it, and brings a mechanic a basket of parts, that’s a modern basket case. The mechanic doesn’t know what was originally wrong, nor does he know if he has all the parts. Mechanics hate jobs like that.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/10 "2006-02-03T05:17:43Z")
From April of last year [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=311721&highlight=basket+case](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=311721&highlight=basket+case)
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2006, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-the-term-basket-case-come-from/342526/11 "2006-02-03T08:56:44Z")
I have heard it referred to (perhaps only as an erroneous or fairly modern morphing of the meaning) as referring to _psychiatric_ patients; apparently _Basket Factory_ is a euphemism for some kind of asylum or psychiatric unit - basket weaving being a typical ‘therapuetic’ pastime (or perhaps in days gone by, a source of income for the asylum). Thus a ‘Basket Case’ would be a person who belongs in the _Basket Factory_.
Please note: I am not offering this as a competing root etymology; only mentioning a form of usage I have observed.