Wiktionary
adv. (context idiomatic English) To a bad state of affairs quickly.
Wikipedia
"Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket", "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an American allegorical locution of unclear origin, which describes a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately. I. Windslow Ayer's 1865 polemic alleges, "Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois at an August meeting of Order of the Sons of Liberty said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would 'send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.
It has also appeared in the title of several published works and other media:
- "To Hell in a Handbasket" is the name of humorist H. Allen Smith's 1962 autobiography.
- "Hell in a Handbasket" was the title of a 1988 Star Trek comic book.
- Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2006 book (ISBN 1585424587) by American counterculture cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, who authors a nationally syndicated cartoon strip This Modern World.
- "Hell in a handbasket" was the name of an undescribed con requiring a trained cat referenced in the 2004 film, Ocean's Twelve.
- "Hell in a Handbasket" is a song from Voltaire's Ooky Spooky album.
- Hell in a Handbasket is the title of a 2011 Meat Loaf album
- Helena Handbasket is the name of a character in the TV show Friends. It is the stage name for Chandler's crossdressing dad.
- "Heff in a Handbasket" is an episode of Rocko's Modern Life.
Usage examples of "to hell in a handbasket".
He shook his head, assured now by the Messiah himself that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
If they don't learn it, they can't teach it, and we'll all go to hell in a handbasket.
Things are going to hell in a handbasket in there, no pun intended.
He supposed that the admiral would check the kid out on them, too, and decided that the navy had gone to hell in a handbasket if it would certify the spacemad on a self-destruction course.
My reputation went to hell in a handbasket, but she never got so much as a splash of mud on the hem of her skirts.
Transported and enslaved uffts would have been involved in the collapse of human civilization, and the galaxy at large would have gone to hell in a handbasket.
Even though Earth itself has gone to hell in a handbasket while we weren't looking, we're starting to fix those problems, too.
Times like this with everything going to hell in a handbasket, it's everyone together.
That milquetoast was re-elected and the country is going to hell in a handbasket.
Later Rose had gone to Hell in a handbasket, but remained a good person.