English Explanatory Dictionary

hell

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. A place of torment where some or all sinners are believed to go after death and evil spirits are believed to be.
noun
  1. A place or situation of great suffering in life.
  2. A place for gambling.
  3. An extremely hot place.
  4. Used as an intensifier in phrases grammatically requiring a noun.
  5. A place into which a tailor throws shreds, or a printer discards broken type.
  6. In certain games of chase, a place to which those who are caught are carried for detention.
  7. Something extremely painful or harmful (to)
intj
  1. Used to express discontent, unhappiness, or anger.
  2. Used to emphasize.
  3. Used to introduce an intensified statement following an understated one; nay; not only that, but.
adv
  1. Alternative form of the hell or like hell.
  2. Very; used to emphasize strongly.
verb
  1. To make hellish; to place (someone) in hell; to make (a place) into a hell.
  2. To hurry, rush.
  3. To move quickly and loudly; to raise hell as part of motion.
verb
  1. To add luster to; to burnish (silver or gold).
verb
  1. To pour.
name
  1. Alternative spelling of Hel.
  2. Alternative form of Hela.
  3. Alternative letter-case form of hell.
  4. Any of various places so named.
  5. A village in Stjørdal municipality, Trøndelag, Norway; was the administrative center of Lånke municipality, which existed until 1962.
  6. A locality in West Bay, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.
  7. A ghost town in Riverside County, California, United States.
  8. An unincorporated community in Putnam Township, Livingston County, Michigan, United States.

Pronunciation

hĕl /hɛl/ en-us-hell.ogg En-uk-hell.ogg

Word forms

hell hel helle hells helling helled

Etymology

From Middle English helle, from Old English hell, from Proto-West Germanic *hallju, from Proto-Germanic *haljō (“concealed place, netherworld”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover, conceal, save”). First attested in c. 725. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Hälle (“hell”), West Frisian hel (“hell”), Dutch hel (“hell”), German Low German Hell (“hell”), German Hölle (“hell”), Norwegian helvete (“hell”), Icelandic hel (“the abode of the dead, death”). Also related to the Hel of Germanic mythology. See also hele.

Synonyms

afterlife hella

Antonyms

heaven

Related words

damn heck

Derived words

all hell breaks loose as all hell as hell bastard operator from hell behell bleeding hell bloody hell blooming hell bullet hell burn in hell by hell callback hell catch hell cat's chance in hell chicken from hell Chinaman's chance in hell chuffing hell come hell or high water dammit all to hell dammit to hell damn you all to hell dependency hell development hell DLL hell Elo hell for the hell of it forty minutes of hell fresh hell fucking hell gambling hell gate of hell give someone hell go through hell go to hell go-to-hell go to hell and back Harrowing of Hell harrying of hell hella hellacious hellagood hell and half of Georgia hell and Tommy hell around Hell Aviv hellban hellbender hell-bent hell-bent-for-leather hell-bent for leather hellbilly hell-born hellborn hellbound hellbox hellbrew hell-brewed hell bride hellbroth hellburner

Translations

Albanian: drreqin Danish: helvede! Finnish: helvetti! French: merde German: zur Hölle! German: Himmel! German: Teufel! Hebrew: לעזאזל! Icelandic: helvítis! Japanese: 畜生 Japanese: 糞 Norwegian: helvete! Russian: чёрт Northern Sami: helvet! Scottish Gaelic: murt Spanish: carajo! Spanish: mierda! Spanish: diablos! Spanish: joder! Swedish: helvete!
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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