hurt locker

noun

slang

: a state or situation marked by or involving intense danger, pain, distress, etc. and often imagined as an enclosed physical space

If you don't prepare for retirement, you're in a hurt locker.

—Paul Siverson, quoted in The Daily News (Jacksonville, North Carolina)

—often used with the

… the tourism industry which employs an estimated 70 to 75 percent of the work force is in the hurt locker.

—Robert N. Jenkins

Right now, we're two games out of first and we're two games out of 10th. If we go 0-2 this week, we're definitely in the hurt locker.

—Adam Keefe, quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle

The plot … was none too taxing—nerd gets oppressed by bad guys, learns deadly kung fu skills, comes back and puts them in the hurt locker …

—Stefan Hammond

Word History

Etymology

Note: Compare the contemporaneous expression in a world of hurt with approximately the same sense as in the hurt locker.

First Known Use

1972, in the meaning defined above