snake pit

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snake pit

n. Slang

1. A place full of disorder, lawlessness, and often malice.

2. A mental hospital, especially one that is overcrowded and chaotic.

snake′ pit`

or snake′pit`,

1. a mental hospital marked by squalor and inhumane or indifferent care for the patients.

2. an intensely chaotic or disagreeable place or situation.

[after a novel with the same title (1946) by Mary Jane Ward (b. 1905), U.S. novelist]

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Noun	1.	snake pit - any place of pain and turmoil; "the hell of battle"; "the inferno of the engine room"; "when you're alone Christmas is the pits"; hell, hell on earth, hellhole, inferno, the pits region, part - the extended spatial location of something; "the farming regions of France"; "religions in all parts of the world"; "regions of outer space"
	2.	snake pit - pejorative terms for an insane asylum booby hatch, crazy house, cuckoo's nest, funny farm, funny house, loony bin, madhouse, nut house, nuthouse, sanatorium, Bedlam mental home, mental hospital, mental institution, psychiatric hospital, insane asylum, asylum, institution - a hospital for mentally incompetent or unbalanced person

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Years ago, after we had been shocked by movies like The Snake Pit, we decided to deinstitutionalize the mentally ill, but as the psychiatrist Fuller Torrey pointed out in these pages a decade ago, we neglected to fund enough outpatient mental health clinics.

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If the housing market were human, it would look like it just wrestled a few alligators, after running an obstacle course through a snake pit.