Figurative and Literary Usage
The phrase "to hell in a handbasket" means to rapidly deteriorate. The origin of this use is unclear. "Basket" is sometimes used as an adjective towards a person who is born out of wedlock. This occurs more commonly in British English. "Basket" also refers to a bulge in a man's crotch.
Read more about this topic: Basket
Famous quotes containing the words figurative, literary and/or usage:
“Church neglect
And figurative use have pretty well
Reduced him to a shadow of himself.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination.... To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)