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.
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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)
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—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)