Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pertaining to gambling and/or casinos.

1832		Satirist (London) 5 Feb. 47/2: [A] party of Queen-square officers were about the neighourhood [...] The hellish work, for one night, was thus suspended.
1832		Satirist (London) 20 May 167/1: We have before alluded to the Hellish mania of the late [...] author of ‘Lacon.’ So addicted to play was this gentleman, that he has been known to pass many successive days in these places of infamy.

a professional gambler.

1824		letter in Times 9 Oct. n.p.: The hellites at all the hells [...] do not fail to resort to every species of cheating.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 34: When they think they have completely cleaned him out, these hellites will wish to be freed from his company.
1838		J. Grant Sketches in London 355: In all the gaming-houses of any note, there are unprincipled reckless persons in the pay of hellites.
1848		Era (London) 1 Oct. 9/3: The authorities [...] have tacitly sanctioned the avocations of the hellites.
1852		Sligo Champion (Ireland) 22 Mar. 4/4: The hellite lit a fresh cigar, and began to shuffle.

the London Stock Exchange, seen as no more than another casino.

1826		Hansard 28 Feb. 962: The Stock Exchange [...] was neither more nor less than a Pandemonium [...] police officers had been set effectually to working aginst the hells of Pall-mall, and it would be just as easy to extinguish the great hell of the city.
1831		Satirist (London) 6 Nov. 247/3: We subjoin a list of ten more [members] [...] Emanuel Lousada [...] has not long been a member of the Great Hell.

a professional gambler.

1833

‘The ‘Hell’ Birds’ in Tommarroo Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 333: We jolly hell-birds e’er will spend, / Our money as we get it / [...] / And never have, while we’re at sport, / The tables turn’d upon us.

1. one who lives an unfettered, undisciplined and adventuresome life.

1911		Blue & Gold (U. Cal. Berkeley) 509: While I was at Yale, a visiting Western professor sat on a table and kicked his heels against the legs. All the brows pronounced him a regular heller.
1912		Van Loan ‘The Loosening Up of Hogan’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 132: Give me a team of young hellers, and I’ll get you a pennant here sure!
1945		W. Maxwell The Folded Leaf (1999) 157: I used to think I was a regular heller but compared to some of these guys I’m not so bad I guess. I could teach Sunday school if I wanted to.
1983		L. Perdue DaVinci Legacy 82: He was a real heller in his youth — he still is. Gave everybody fit.
2003		S.D.G. Heath Donnie & Jean 58: Being a real heller as a young man [...] he obviously presented one of those challenges that so inspire the fervent, holy pursuit of the godly.

2. (US) a very difficult, formidable or exciting thing or person.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 9: Heller, n. A remarkable person.
1922		McClure’s Mag. 54 54: We ran a great, tall pig, a regular heller, right into her lair. She was as big as a Shetland pony.
1934		Weseen Dict. Amer. Sl. 348: [General] Heller – A very daring, aggressive, or active person; a person who indulges in immoral, illegal, or questionable practices.
1937		‘F. Bonnamy’ Death on a Dude Ranch (1953) 25: He was a tough guy, and a heller, but he was real as dirt.
1938		W. Smitter F.O.B. Detroit 9: He could be a heller with women if he wanted to.
1949		‘F. Bonnamy’ Blood and Thirsty (1952) 89: Then the island got a [...] couple of storms that were hellers.
1952		Overholser Fabulous Gunman 53: His dad was a regular old heller.
1960		(con. 1940s) MacCuish Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 128: As of right now I wanna start forgettin’ that heller.
1966		T.V. Olsen The Hard Men (1974) 122: He decided that a heller of a storm would hit before long.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 187: The hellers. The misfits who were of two different sorts: ones who caused trouble and ones who merely had trouble.

3. (US campus) an exciting, dramatic party.

1921		R.L. Duffus Roads Going South 117: ‘Wait till I get you down to New York for a regular heller.’ He winked mysteriously. ‘That's the life’.
1960		(con. 1940s) MacCuish Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 76: We [...] bring the girls back. Makes for a real heller.
1963		Dundes & Schonhorn ‘Kansas University Sl.: A New Generation’ in AS XXXVIII:3171: A few of the more colourful expressions [for party] appearing once are: ball, bash, beer blast, blowout, boozer, bust, heller, rocker, shit kicker, shit stomper, smash, and swinger.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L 1/2 61: heller n Exciting, activity-filled party.

(US) absolutely none, nothing whatsoever .

c.1933–74		(con. WWI) E. Mackin Didn’t Want to Die 118: You don’t amount to hell-in-all up there [HDAS].
1969		G. Sidney Love of Dying 84: You think you bein’ a sergeant means hell-all here?

chaos, disorder (cf. play hell and tommy ).

1809		A.B. Lindsley Yankee Notions 37: ’E’ll be tarnation mad ’f ’e finds out I ony ben ashore a while, and kick up hell and leetle Tomy.
1830		Monthly Rev. Feb. 178: He may bring them up, if he chooses, in the popular arts of breaking windows, prostrating the guardians of the night, instituting weekly series of rows in peaceful neighbourhoods; [...] the elegant amusements of ‘Hell and Tommy’.
1845		J.W. Carlyle letter 25 Sept. Letters: a New Sel. (1949) 166: I had made the house into the liveliest representation of ‘Hell and Tommy’.
1891		Sporting Times 24 Jan. 1/4: Off and plenty of it [...] Fork it out [...] or there will be the very Hades and Tommy to pay.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 35: Hell and Tommy, utter destruction.
1913		E.M. Dell Knave of Diamonds 178: He stirs up hell and tommy wherever he goes.
1940		Cockerell & Meynell Friends of a Lifetime 100: Hell and Tommy was going on all the evening everywhere, and the town gutters ran beer in some parts and usquebaugh in others.

see separate entry.

1. (US, also hell-bending fool) a formidable, outrageous thing or individual [fig. use of US dial. hellbender, the American salamander or alligator (cryptobranchus)].

[1812		B.S. Barton [bk title] Memoir concerning an Animal [...] which is known by the name of Alligator or Hell-bender].
1867		J. Scott Partisan Life 197: Give us, then, ‘Billy in the Low Grounds,’ or ‘Sugar in the Gourd,’ or [...] some hellbender of your own!
1871		C.G. Leland ‘Breitmann in Italy’ Hans Breitmann in Europe 272: Dere is mutterins in Ravenna, / Und ere long dere’ll come a turn, / A real hell-bender from de land / Of Dieterich von Bern.
1893		Waco Eve. News 2 Mar. 2/2: Uncle Joey hell Bender Miller [...] is the most industrious editorial writer in the state.
1904		Salt Lake Trib. (UT) 22 Oct. 2/4: The younger nelson is one of those ‘hell-benders’ in politics.
1909		J.W. Carr in ‘Word-List From Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:v 398: hell bending fool, n. A daredevil fellow. ‘When I was young I was a reg’lar hell bending fool’.
1912		Timea Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 12 July 8/4: They characterized Scruggs as being ‘King of the Hell-benders,’ and the debauchers of the youth in the community.
1924		C.E. Mulford Hopalong Cassidy Returns 49: Who is this here buck-jumpin’ hell-bender?
1948		Popular Western June 48/1: That hellbender Kinsey [DA].
1968		in E. Guevara Venceremos! 2: His father, also named Ernesto, was an adventurous, swashbuckling, hell-bender, who made and squandered minor fortunes.

2. a drinking bout [ext. of bender n.² ].

1877		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (4th edn) 283: Jack has been on a perfect hell-bender of a spree.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues III 7/2: hell-bender [...] a drinking bout.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 249: A drinking bout [...] in American slang, a hell-bender.

(US) hellish, arduous.

1890		(con. 1860s) J.O. Kerbey On the War Path 156: Jones says: ‘We went along here at a hell-bending trot’.
1912		DN III 398: hell-bending fool n. phr. A daredevil fellow.
1920		E.S. Dorrance Glory Rides the Range 243: However they are, there is time to hear how you came a hell- bending cropper like this.
1948		N. Nye Breed of the Chaparral (1949) 103: I come out here hunting for a hellbending sheriff-killer, and all I can find is a goddam windbag!
1976		B. Lancaster Trumpet to Arms 95: There isn’t a man in my regiment that can't take a dory clear to the Grand Banks and back through the damnedest hell-bending storm that ever blew.
1989		L. Floren High Border Riders197: And a waterfall it was — a regular hell-bending desert cloudburst.
1992		N.Nye Last Chance Kid 112: Shortly before my arrival in this hell-bending place, a small hospital had been built and staffed,.

see separate entry.

1. (US) a pulpit.

1899

J.W. Davis Gawktown Revival Club 86: He exchanged pulpits with Rev. Bulldozer [...] and the first thing that Mr. Bulldozer did when he paid me a pastoral call was to turn the hell-box upside down, sit on it, take out a wad of chewing gum and make himself thoroughly at home.

2. see box n.¹ (4e)

liquor, whether actually ‘off’ or seen as morally evil by teetotallers.

1912

Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 15/2: ‘Not on your life, Horace.’ ‘The hell broth nearly did us in; but we’re done with it, old sport.’ ‘For good ’n’ ever.’.

1. (orig. US, also hell blazer) an amazing, riotous or violent thing or person.

1916		in Best Amer. Short Stories 84: ‘She’s a hell-buster!’ He was moving about the car, peering under the gears. [...] ‘She’s a hell-buster!’.
1929		Carhart & Young Last Stand of the Pack 79: Thought you were such a hell-buster of a wolfer?
1931		Amer. Assoc. School Administratorsd Official Report 22: Drinking, gambling, brawling, cussing, fighting down and out, and so the mountaineers called him (and it is their worst term in the mountains) a hell buster.
1935		N. Algren Somebody in Boots 255: Once a fellow called me Hell-Blazer.
1968		E.M. Coffman War to End All Wars 64: Bud, if this old world is as big the other way as she is this, she’s a hell-buster for sartain.

2. a preacher.

1931		R. Bradford John Henry 207: So John Henry turned his back on the preacher and walked out of the Old Ship of Zion Church, and he never saw Hell-buster after that.
1949		I. Leighton (ed.) Aspirin Age 39: They [i.e. prohibition-era detectives] staged a spectacular raid for the benefit of Dr. John Roach Straton, a famous hell-buster of the period.

a hackney carriage.

1630		J. Taylor ‘A Thiefe’ in Works (1869) II 121/1: Then upstart Helcart-Coaches were to seeke, / A man could scarce see twenty in a weeke.
1647		A New Merry Letany 4: From a Hell-cart, and a close-stool Sedan, Libera nos.
1654		E. Gayton Pleas. Notes II 36: The Ladies in the Hell Carts screem’d out for their Hector.
1659		Mercurius Democritus 7-14 June47: Two Shoreditch Mades [...] met with an empty Hell-cart at Holloway [etc.].

a lewd bawdy person; also a mischievous young boy, a lively animal, a spiteful person.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hell-cat, a very Lewd Rakehelly Fellow.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 8: I am arrived to the Womens Felons Apartment [...] where I view’d a Troop of Hell-Cats.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: hell-Cat a very lewd Woman.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1846		Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 36: He flares up and fires away and bestows many opprobrious epithets upon Mr. Macbeth, calling him among other things a ‘hell-kite’.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 131: That hell-cat ahine the door parsecuted me to the las’.
1882		Manchester Eve. News 9 Sept. 3/3: He [...] said in a gruff angry tone, as though taklking to a dog, ‘Get out, you hellcat. I’ll poison you if I have half a chance’.
1906		O.W. Hanley ‘Dialect Words From Southern Indiana’ in DN III:ii 119: hell cat, n. One who pesters or annoys. ‘That kid’s a regular hell cat’.
1916		H.L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap 87: A regular hell-cat – what he is!
1916		Hull Dly Mail 16 Mar. 2/2: He also wrote [...] ‘please take care of yourself, darling hell-cat.’ That, he said, was a reference to her amorous propensities.
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 10: Shut up, Hell-cat. What you need is ’nother drink.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 8: ‘Young hell-cat,’ snarled the rancher, when the boy had been overcome and bound.
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 41: He was a hell-cat in business dealings.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 183: You’re a hell-cat, and no mistake.
1977		S. Stallone Paradise Alley (1978) 112: He had become a hellcat.

see clinking adv.

1. a coachman, presumably one who drives recklessly.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Hell-driver, a Coachman.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].

2. a similarly inclined car-driver.

1942

Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.

(drugs) heroin.

1922		E.F. Murphy Black Candle 359: It is three times stronger than morphine and is designated as ‘hell-dust’ or ‘the powder of destruction.’ Speaking of the different drugs, Judge Cornelius F. Collins has said, ‘Heroin is undoubtedly the most pernicious’.
1934		F. Tuohy Inside Dope 195: ‘Helldust’, ‘coke’, ‘the needles’ [...] all are of American origin.
1953		Anslinger & Tompkins Traffic In Narcotics 310: hell dust. Drugs, especially morphine or heroin.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 11: Hell dust — [...] heroin.

(US gay) a club for devotees of hardcore sado-masochism.

1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 134: A young Cuban male prostitute who had been seen in the company of an older gay male at a hellfire club.
2005		at www.vermilion-sands.com 🌐 The HELLFIRE CLUB (How to get the most out of your secret society) was no relation--other than vague inspiration--to modern-day frat gangs and gay S/M clubs using the same name.

1. (orig. US) a general intensifier.

1737		Derby Mercury 29 Sept. 2/2: Sir, Please Lay forty Pounds in Money Under Your threstle and Set no watch tomorrow Night [...] If you Setta Watch wee will kill you [...] From Your Bloody Enemey L.B. Never be afraid Boys wee will do this Job a hell-fired Rogue,. Dated the 19 January 1745 [sic].
1755		World 4 Sept. 140/1: How arbitrary is language! and how does the custom of mankind join words, that reason has put asunder! Thus we often hear of hell-fire cold, of devilish handsome, and the like .
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 157: O! d--n me, Sir [...] he is a h—ll-fir’d good creature!
1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 217: He was a ‘hell-fire dog,’ and lived by gambling.
1827		W.T. Moncrieff Bashful Man II iv: Hell-fire Dick was a fool to me!
1833		J. Neal Down-Easters I 79: See what a hell-fired noise the watch makes.
1905		S.F. Call 22 Jan. 5/4: It’s been a hellfire dry summer at Bully Creek.
1939		H.E. Bates My Uncle Silas 131: My Uncle Silas would go on to describe not only how big Porky Sanders was [...] but what a smashing, hell-fire, holy terror he was.
1943		Nottingham Eve. Post 18 Oct. 3/4: The Yankee [...] replied, ‘Any hell-fired thing, Sarg, from the crack of dawn upwards!’.
c.1960		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 131: Anyone who buys those matches / Gets a hellfire dose of pox.
1980		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 326: Elvis [...] raised more hellfired ruckus than the Beatles, Stones and Sex Pistols all put together.
1996		P. Cornwell Cause of Death (1997) 241: There’s a hellfire rush on it for some reason.

2. as an infix.

1956

N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 88: I’m not to be dic-hellfire-tated to by you or anyone.

see hack v.² (1)

see hell-cat

see hell-all

see hell-roaring

see hell-cat

(US campus) the night of initiation into a fraternity or sorority.

1947		Woodlawn Booster 20 Aug. 6/1: Last Wednesday, August 13, was ‘Hell’ night for the girls at the 55th Street beach [DA].
1956		Stephenson & Kilzer Allied Activities in the Secondary School 100: The boy reported that on ‘hell night’ he was taken to a far-away golf course ‘where the cops could not hear you yell.’.
1974		G.D. Spindler Education and Cultural Process 172: The rites of hell night [...] occur in the context of mild identity diffusion.
2004		H. Nuwer Hazing Reader 95: When the end does come, it also comes [...] only after pledges experience what many fraternity chapters call Hell Night, the most intense hazing of the whole socialization experience.

(US campus) a fat unattractive woman.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

one who deliberately causes trouble.

1914		Emporia [Kansas] Gazette 13 Jan. n.p.: He is a four-flusher, a ring-tailed, rip-snorting hell-raiser, and a grandstander [R].
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 26: Clawson and the other young men technically known as ‘hell-raisers’ looked forward to his lectures on physiology.
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 162–3: The high school students and collegians have been shown up [...] as hoop-la night riders and hell-raisers in general.
1943		I. Wolfert Tucker’s People (1944) 116: The old man had been a fun-loving hell-raiser once upon a time.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 125: That cantankerous old hell-raiser is too ornery to give up.
1961		G. Marx letter 5 July in Groucho Letters (1967) 220: I wish I had been a hell-raiser when I was thirty years old.
1973		Csonka & Kiick Always on the Run 29: He knows a hell-raiser when he sees one, because he was one himself.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 92: He was a hell-raiser, always drinking a lot of whiskey and fighting, every Saturday night.
2000		Guardian 7 Feb. 12: Casino multi-millionaire and all-round cowboy hellraiser Ted Binion died in the den of his luxury Las Vegas home.

trouble-making.

1903		Sunderland Dly Echo 22 Sept. 5/4: The English horse Presbyterian is gaining a notrious reputation in India for ‘fire-eating, savaging, hell-raising, and general cussedness’.
1920		H. Wiley Wildcat 180: Lily, you hell-raisin’ hoodoo, good-by.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 195: Gee! What a hell-rippin’ thing this would be.
1935		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 16 Dec. 9/1: These babes in the woods had no right to go to hell-raising Los Pinos.
1949		L. Hughes Tambourines to Glory II i: Mama was the hell-raisingest woman in Charlotte society.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 124: The new hell-raising warden ordered all cells painted alike.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 5: There were more hell-raising agents in the dressing rooms than there was tape.
1980		in S. Terkel Amer. Dreams (1982) 183: They weren’t hell-raising Irish.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 94: He'd clown and drink and carry on with them women. Charlie Patton was a hell-raising kind of guy.
2000		Observer Mag. 21 May 20: The hell-raising actor Keith Allen.

causing trouble.

1922		S. Lewis Babbitt 25: Deliberately trying to get away with a lot of hell-raising.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Corkscrew’ Story Omnibus (1966) 202: We’re tired and sick of this perpetual hell-raising.
1943		M. Constiner ‘The Turkey Buzzard Blues’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 271: If you’re an alcohol-tax-man sombuddy’s in fer some hell-raisin’.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 96: Even its own residents do their hell-raising elsewhere.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 180: If arts means hell-raising, he’s a patron all right.
2000		Guardian G2 19 Jan. 17: Serial hell-raising is these days a virtual prerequisite for nomination hopefuls.

a violent, forceful or exuberant person or thing.

1816		W. Scott Old Mortality xli: A’ thae hell-rakers o’ dragoons wad be at his whistle in a moment. Nae doubt they’re Willie’s men.
1830		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 26 June 4/4: [He spends] whole day in the North American Hotel bar room with a company of hell-racks like himself.
2002		FiliaDeCiara posting ‘Light vs darkness’ 31 Jul. at SciFi.com 🌐 He was also a lusty young hell-raker who was in his ‘sowing-his-wild-oats’ days, and he greatly enjoyed much of the darker side of vamphood.
2008		J. MacFarlane Time of kings 205: You used to be a hell-raker – a womanizer, Robbie, what happened to that unbridled lust that flowed in your veins.

dramatically violent, chaotic.

1606		J. Sylvester Du Bartas (1641) Trophies 198/2: Whose Hell-raking, Nature-shaking Spell, / These odious words could scarce be hearkned well.
2000		‘Albums’ Misfit City Issue 2 page 6 🌐 King Crimson return, adding another oblique joint to the thirty-year-plus career that’s seen them go from jazzed-up Mellotronic prog via hellraking European electric improv and proto-grunge heavy-minimalism to technophilic New Wave world-beat.

(US) a wild, uncontrolled individual or situation.

1883		E.H. Topping Chronicle of the Yellowstone 63: He was asked what kind of stream the next creek was. ‘It’s a hell-roarer,’ was his reply, and Hell Roaring is its name to this day.
1922		E. Pound letter 19 July in Paige (1971) 183: Auw shucks! dearie, aint you the hell-roarer, aint you the kuss.
1935		N. Algren Somebody in Boots 246: Ah’m a Texas hell-roarer!
1947		M. Sandoz Tom-Walker (1984) 302: Looked like you was a real hell-roarer, thunder in your fists and your whiskers blowin’.
1967		W. Decker To Be a Man (1981) 44: This [i.e. a nightmare] was a real hell-roarer, too. Woke up all asweat pulling at my soogans.
1970		R.B. Henderson Maury Maverick 309: He was a hell-roarer, all right, and most people chose up sides on that basis.

(US) wild, out of control.

1878		F.H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 26: There come up one of them hell-roarin’ big snow-storms.
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 148: I’m a hell-tearing cyclone! I’m a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-car terror from Texas!
1909		‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny 371: Is n’t this just the hell-roaringest time we ever had in our lives?
1912		R.H. Thornton Amer. Gloss. 427: Hell-kicking, Hell-roaring, &c. Adjectives indicating depravity and fury [...] These words are not genteel.
1919		H.B. Beston Full Speed Ahead 104: What do you think you are anyway — Hell-Roaring Jack the Storm-King?
1934		(con. 1870s) E. Cunningham Triggernometry (1957) 49: It seemed impossible that the quiet, fiddling, likeable Jackson could be this lightning gunfighter [...] the hell-roaring Bill Longley.
1949		Time 5 Sept. 12/3: These were hell-roaring, rip-snorting affairs with the loudest and longest speeches you ever heard [DA].
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 42: You’re a marine, a two-fisted, hard-drinking, steel-chewing, hell-roaring leatherneck of a devil-dog.

(US) any disreputable or out-of-the-way area.

1954		Harder Collection n.p.: Hell’s holler....Symbolic place-name: a bad, unpleasant, godforsaken place; an out-of-the-way, forbidding place. ‘Whar’d ’ey all come from?’ ‘Come from tother side o’ Hell’s Holler’ [DARE].
1966–69		in DARE II 963/2: Joking names..for an out-of-the-way place, or a very unimportant place [...] Hell’s bottom [...] Hell’s hollow [...] Hell’s point.

pandemonium, chaos; often in phr. play hell’s delight (with), to cause chaos (cf. kick up hell’s delight ).

1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 95: Hell’s delights — much mental pain [...] ‘Kicking up hell’s delights,’ a scolding a quarrel.
1871		Reynolds’s Newspaper 21 May 3/1: The female aristocracy frequenting these shooting hell’s delight [...] beholding the poor piogeons maimed and knocked to pieces.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 272: If these fellows are half drunk they’ll burn the place down [...] and play hell’s delight.
1912		A.G. Field Watch Yourself Go By 23: Ef ye had my spunk, ye’d hev knocked hell’s delight out of some of ’em.
1918		K.F. Purdon Dinny on the Doorstep 109: Troth, I wisht to goodness they never marked them! for all the Hell’s delight, and she kicked it up then.
1926		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 1 Feb. 8/4: Wirtaman cried out, ‘Who is for hell’s delight in the Suicide Club?’.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 152: In five seconds there was ’ell’s delight in the bloody bar.
1931		A.R.D. Fairburn letter in Edmond Letters (1981) 31 Aug. 53: I’m afraid there’ll be hell’s delight when we send the glad news back to the old Homeland.

(US prison) prison.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 27: Hell’s Front Porch also Devil’s Front Porch In prison.

(orig. US) any disreputable area or place, esp. the slum area of a town or a low-class dancehall or bar; thus all around/over hell’s half-acre, all over the place, everywhere.

1855		H.R. Helper Land of Gold 151: Among the more fanciful names that designate localities in various parts of the mines are the following: [...] Mad Ox Ravine, Mad Mule Canon, Skunk Flat, Woodpecker Hill, Jesus Maria, Yankee Jim’s Diggings, Death Pass, Ignis Fatuus Placer, Devil’s Retreat, Bloody Bend, Jackass Gulch, Hell’s Half Acre.
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 130: I come ter de place whar dey fit so two days arterwuds – dey call it ‘Hell’s-half-acre.’.
1870		J.H. Beadle Life in Utah 152: This kind of contrivance [a buried powder keg] was called by the Mormons a ‘hell’s half-acre’.
1874		J.G. McCoy Sketches of the Cattle Trade 141: The keepers of those ‘hell’s half acres’ find some pretext arising from ‘business jealousies’ or other causes, to suddenly become belligerent.
1881		Interior Jrnl (Stanford, KY) 4 Feb. 1/4: Curious Kentucky town nomenclature [...] ‘Devil’s Den’ and ‘Hell’s Halfacre’ in Spencer.
1901		C.R. Wooldridge Hands Up! 312: Chicago once had a ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ which had a better right to the title perhaps than any place this side of the hereafter.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 80: He did not seek a restaurant; instead he returned into the Hell’s Half Acre from which he was bodily kicked so recently.
1940		F. Hunt Long Trail from Texas 264: Valentine was a hangout for Sand Hill desperados and rustlers [...] It was Hell’s Half Acre.
1945		Jefferson County Republican 25 July 2/2: He planned to leave the following week for a trip to Devil’s Play Ground in Hell’s Half Acre [DA].
1958		J.D. Horan Wild Bunch (1960) 107: Kid Curry suggested Fannie Porter’s Sporting House in the section the outlaws referred to as ‘Hell’s Half Acre’.
1986		S. King It (1987) 454: There were eight or ten bars, most of em down in a part of town they called Hell’s Half-Acre.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 306: hell’s half acre, hick town (or -ville).
2004		(con. late 19C) D.W. Holmes Lure of El Rio D’Ais 66: Just as New York City had its Tenderloin and [...] and Chicago its Levee and ‘Hell’s halfacre,’ downtown Butte had ‘Venus Abbey.’.

1. any very unpleasant or dangerous place.

1835		D. Crockett Col. Crockett’s Tour to North and Down East 49: In my country when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell’s kitchen.
1837		N. Hawthorne Amer. Notebooks (1932) 15: He talked with Bridge about the boundary question, and swore fervently in favor of driving the British ‘into Hell’s kitchen’ by main force.
1866		Dublin Eve. Mail 18 Jan. n.p.: The letter was addreseed ‘James Pitgogles Edgar Dunbog [...] residing at Hell’s Kitchen, alias Dunbog Manse, Newburgh’.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 67: She had known girls get out of Petworth [prison], better known as hell’s Kitchen.

2. a generic term for any urban slum area, esp. one that serves also as a lower class entertainment centre, or any dangerous or seedy place; also attrib.

1862		M.D. Colt Went to Kansas 238: The next Summer was applied to to teach in a part of our town [i.e. Crown Point, NY] known as ‘Hell’s kitchen’.
1878		T.W. Knox Underground World 773: He would take us to [...] the ‘Roaring Gimlet,’ ‘Hell's Kitchen,’ and a few similar resorts, and convince me that we had nothing like them in New York.
1885		Harper’s Mag. Nov. 839/1: [in fig. use] The guerrillas [...] have formerly fixed the unsavory appellations of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Robber’s Roost’ upon certain localities of the [N.Y. Stock Exchange] floor .
1888		Photographic Times 18 59: At a place called ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ near Eleventh Avenue on Thirty-ninth Street, they [...] were attacked by some of the women with brickbats.
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 225: When it comes to Hell’s Kitchen, [...] and further down First Avenue in ‘the Village,’ the Rag Gang and its allies have no need of fearing treachery.
1898		Dly Gaz. for Middlesborough 4 Aug. 2/7: New York correspondent cables:— [...] the riots in ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ were renewed on Tuesday night [and] a battle royal raged between the negroes and the whites.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 98: Hell’s Kitchen, in the speech of people who do not know what it means to work there, is the foundry.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 131: ‘Well, how’s the cub reporter?’ ‘I’m on Hell’s Kitchen . . . It’s swell.’.
1930		D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 60: When I first ventured into Hell’s Kitchen I came in contact with types I had never before conceived.
1943–44		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 74: There was a Hell’s Kitchen Y.T. / Who said to two boyfriends, ‘Aw, gee’.
1954		B. Appel Sweet Money Girl 7: A few old-time German families [...] remembered the days when this West Side neighbourhood had been known as Hell’s Kitchen.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 182: It’s all gone quiet, and you’d never think it was a hell’s kitchen once.
1961		L. Block ‘I Don’t Fool Around’ in One Night Stands (2008) 86: Calder does most of his work in the Kitchen. A Hell’s Kitchen boy from the start, grew up on 39th Street west of Ninth.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 260: He was born in Hell’s Kitchen in The Bronx, New York.
1976		in R. Yates Easter Parade (2003) 63: He was staying in a rundown hotel in Hell’s Kitchen.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 508: He’s your basic hardcore New York Hell’s Kitchen Irishman.

(US) a large quantity.

1873

‘Mark Twain’ & C. Warner Gilded Age 21: He’s come back to the Forks with jist a hell’s-mint o’ whoop-jamboree notions.

see snorting adj.

(orig. US) used as a general intensifier.

1893		F.P. Dunne in Schaaf Mr Dooley’s Chicago (1977) 68: By gar, he’ll be th’ ’ell’s own man, won’t he though.
1945		(con. 1937) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 199: They’re hellish muddled, you’ve got to get up to hell’s own dodges to get even a penny back for twopence spent.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 18: To free the safe from its frame with only a ‘stick’ [...] without making hell’s own row, would take a little time.
1960		R.M. Muir Word for Word 253: It was hell’s own job rounding the bastards up.
1965		F. Pollini Glover 303: One hell’s own time, getting her.

see hell’s bottom

(US) a sulphur match.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 40: hell-sticks, n. Matches.
1968		R.F. Adams Western Words (2nd edn) 145/1: hell stick. What the cowman sometimes called the sulphur match so common on the range in the early days; when it really gave him a ‘whiff of hell.’.

see hell-roaring

1. (US campus) the period of initiation for pledges to a college fraternity.

1922		Printers’ Ink 118 65: Omega Eta became the first Fraternity at Miami to abolish ‘Hell Week’.
1930		Randolph Enterprise 18 Dec. 1/6: They were strongly in favor of eliminating ‘Hell Week’ from fraternity procedure entirely [DA].
1948		Time 9 Feb. 76/2: Nine Theta Cris were jailed for breaking into a grocery store on a Hell Week scavenger hunt [DA].
1958		Bloch & Niderhoffer Gang 59: The sadism unleashed [...] can readily be attested to by anyone who has either witnessed a college fraternity ‘hell week’ [...] or the induction of a slum youth into a neighborhood gang.
1966		(con. 1958) R. Farina Been Down So Long (1972) 20: I might dig it and pledge. Wear a propellor-topped beanie during Hell Week, pull a quacking toy to class.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L 1/2 61: hell week n Period of confinement and hazing for pledges prior to initiation into the fraternity.
1982		A. Maupin Further Tales of the City (1984) 35: Nelson Schwab had cornered him during Hell Week at the Deke House.
1991		Eble Campus Sl. Mar.
2003		T. Dorsey Stingray Shuffle 20: A Navy SEAL who told her about going through some kind of gruelling test called Hell Week.

2. (US campus) examination week.

1992		(con. 1925) F.M. Davis Livin’ the Blues 85: In January I was ready for Hell Week and initiation. Some brothers had expected me to flunk. When most were cramming for finals, I read cowboy magazines.
1992		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: hell week – final exam period.

a general intensifier: very, extremely.

[1668		Dryden An Evening’s Love Act III: beat.: False, or true, Madam? jac.: False as Hell].
[1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) V viii: The man I’ve worn nearest to my heart, Is false as hell].
1770		Foote Lame Lover in Coll. Farces & Entertainment VI (1788) 8: Says Wheezy (who, between ourselves, is as husky as hell).
c.1792		R. Porson ‘Imitation of Horace’ in Whibley In Cap and Gown (1889) 61: While on board as sick as hell, / At shore, old girl, I wish you well.
1828		High Life in London 13 Jan. 2/2: ‘How dare you swear that there was no furniture in my house? It is a vile and wilful perjury, and as false as hell’.
1834		‘The Doctor’s Pills!’ in Delicious Chanter 48: I feel as sore and hot as h-ll.
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 122: I’ve no warmth left in me. The morn’s as cold as h-ll.
1865		in B.L. Ridley Battles and Sketches of the Army of Tennessee (1906) 461: The rude and untrained soldier would [...] say ‘T-w-e-l-v-e o’-c-l-o-c-k, and sleepy as h--l!’.
1880		Liverpool Mail 5 Sept. 6/5: ’It’s getting hot as h—ll round here, I’ll have to cut or they’ll pin me’.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 183: Bad as ’ell. ’E’s bin shot.
1917		D.G. Phillips Susan Lenox I 388: You’ve got a mighty pretty foot. Minnie’s is ugly as hell.
1922		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ in Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald V (1963) 72: Get in here! All three of you! Quick as hell!
1928		J. March Wild Party 10: He was comical as sin.
1930		G. Milburn ‘Jungle Din’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 79: Carbide, a hobo, he showed me, / And Carbide was clever as hell.
1931		D.I. Young ‘Chuck Away’ in Botkin Folk-Say 313: Degree: Hot as hell’s kitchen.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 152: I’m bucked as hell.
1943		W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 414: No kinda steady job jus’ makes ya mean’s all hell.
1952		W.D. Overholser Fabulous Gunman 42: That tickles Cole. Makes him feel as big as all hell.
1960		W. Styron Set This House on Fire 301: A drunk argument with Poppy [...] left me feeling miserable and guilty as all hell.
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 65: It’s interesting as hell.
1982		S. King Different Seasons (1995) 193: Noisy as hell, isn’t it?
1985		J. Morrison Share House Blues 65: ‘Bugger your cousin,’ says Marcus. ‘Don’t you insult my cousin,’ says Gerontius, touchy as hell.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 19: Needless to say I was sad as hell losing a fight to Jordan.
1991		P. Cornwell Body of Evidence (1992) 127: They was sorry as hell to see you leave.
1997		R. Bragg All Over but the Shoutin’ 153: I had been lucky as sin my whole life.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 525: They’re all nervous as hell.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 102: I’m sorry as hell. At least they caught the psycho before he could do any more damage.

in no way whatsoever, absolutely not.

2002

Sally ‘Sally’s Plugging Corner’ Neverland Project 🌐 Raptor Red. haven’t you ever wanted to be a velociraptor? like fucking hell you haven’t. you saw jurassic park. you wanted to tear someone apart with ginsu-knife claws, swallow slabs of their flesh whole. well now you can.

1. a general intensifier: recklessly, intensely, very much, very quickly.

1829		Sydney Gaz. 3 Jan. 2/6: I never, to my knowledge, said I would make Mr. Raine ‘fly like hell’.
1836		Marryat Mr Midshipman Easy III 123: ‘Now strike like hell! — and drive down de plaster,’ said Mesty.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 306: ‘I say, pull like god-dam,’ cried the Indian.
1854		Thackeray Newcomes I 286: I tried every place, everything; went to Ems, to Wiesbaden, to Hombourg, and played like hell.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 86/2: Thau’ll ’ave to keep a b—y big eye on ’im [...] I’m noan so soor but wat e’ll ‘shave’ uz lyke ’ell iv ’e gits a chance.
1874		Derbyshire Courier 17 Jan. 2/5: A couple of old tom-cats got to rarin’ and chargin’ around [...] carryin’ on like sin.
1875		F. Remington letter in Splete (1988) 10: Today it snowed like sin.
1888		Kipling ‘The Three Musketeers’ in Plain Tales from the Hills 65: Ye black limb, there’s a Sahib comin’ for this hekka. He wants to go jildi to the Padsahi Jhil [...] You dhrive Jehannum ke marfik, mallum — like Hell?
1895		S. Crane Red Badge of Courage (1964) 66: Your fellers ’ll run like hell when they onct hearn a gun.
1905		N.Y. Tribune 4 June 29/2: Cate was hurrying like sin.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 582: like hell for Texas, adv. phr. In a hurry; very swiftly. ‘When he jumped onto the brush the rabbit went out through the stubble like hell for Texas’.
1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 149: All three of ’em used to drink like hell.
1915		J. Buchan Thirty-Nine Steps (1930) 78: My shoulder and arm ached like hell.
1929		C. Coe Hooch! 263: ‘You won’t sign, eh?’ he sneered. ‘Just like merry hell you won’t sign. Take that pen!’.
1929		Kipling ‘Satisfaction of a Gentleman’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 253: He licked like hell.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 28: The Laws work like hell to get their names in the papers.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 223: He certainly could drive like hell.
1957		G. Metalious Peyton Place (1959) 80: ‘Time for you to take another trip to White River.’ ‘Like hell,’ said Lucas.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 138: ‘Rickie doesn’t lie!’ [...] ‘Maybe not to you, but he lied like hell to me.’.
1976		Cab Calloway Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 22: I ran like hell.
1977		(con. 1957) J. Rosenthal Spend, Spend, Spend Scene 59: dad: You can go back to Matthew. vivian: I can hell-as-like.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 108: I hate like hell to admit it, but it’s true.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 218: Don’t feed the racoons, they bite like hell.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 170: Bode had no plan beyond running like hell.
2000		Observer Escape 9 Jan. 9: My leg hurts like hell.

2. (also like heck) an ironic excl. of negation and denial; usu. as like hell I will.

1915		R.H. Davis Frame Up 🌐 n.p.: ‘If he don’t like the way I talk,’ she cried, ‘he can come across!’ Mrs. Earle exclaimed in horror. [...] ‘Like hell he will!’ she said. ‘You can’t pull that under my roof!’.
1923		R. McAlmon Village 136: I’m a good girl now. Like hell!
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 41: If he’d said he was coming to my room, I’d of told him, ‘Like hell you will!’.
1930		C.R. Shaw Jack-Roller 118: He later said I was laid off. I said, ‘Like hell, I’m laid off! You can go straight to hell. I have quit!’.
1947		N. Marsh Final Curtain (1958) 121: Like hell it did!
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 111: Sure he could speak English. Like hell!
1960		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 19 June 109/2: ‘I did like heck,’ rebuts Anne.
1961		V.S. Naipaul A House For Mr Biswas 357: ‘Glad like hell,’ Mr Biswas said.
1973		H. Leonard Da (1981) Act II: You what? Like hell you will.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 228: You call these decorations? Like hell.
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 82: ‘I’ll be back for my money later.’ ‘Like hell you will,’ Chrissy said as he left.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 266: ‘Don’t worry. He’s on board.’ ‘Like hell.’.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 62: Like hell, said Ray Bob. Like hell I didn’t.

lit. or fig., destroyed.

1918		Hall & Niles One Man’s War (1929) 323: My plane is all shot to hell!
1927		K. Nicholson Barker III i: The whole damn works is shot to hell anyways.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 227: It costs money to keep up a flat [...] even if the house is shot to hell and crawling with cockroaches and bedbugs.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 119: I may have my nerves shot all to hell.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 11: The Corps sure was shot to hell!
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 23: My life is just all shot to hell.
1974		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water 10: Sonofabitch play cooncan all night, next day he can’t hold a cup of coffee. ’Cause he’s shot to hell.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 43: I was drinking heavily and my fitness reports were shot to hell.
1994		G. Indiana Rent Boy 85: My immune system’s probably shot to hell.

see under sure as... phr.

to the utmost, very much.

1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 58: Den we all four danced t’ beat ’ell.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 261: Oh, I went down to that hop-joint, an’ I rung the hop-joint bell, / And there sat Albert a-hittin’ the pipe, a-hittin the pipe to beat hell.
1935		E. Anderson Hungry Men 232: He hates cops to beat hell.
1942		A.R. Prouse in Ticket to Hell [...] a Prisoner’s Wartime Log 1942–1945 24: I was scared to beat hell, as every time I attempted to get up, my legs would collapse.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 33: He’s mashed up pretty fair and scratched to beat hell front and back.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 56: If you’d seen my old man rushing to beat hell every morning.
1970		Harmon et al. Combat Commander 118: You can bore-sight to beat hell. There’s nothing in front of you but Germans to shoot at.
1988		E. Herbert Passion of Estelle Jordan 4: Some kid driving, [...] for sure thinking, thinking, jacking off to beat hell, she bet.
1998		K.E. Goodpaster et al. Policies and Persons 321: In the words of one merchant, it was ‘selling to beat hell and people don’t care about price.’.
2001		P.J. Bullard Republican Bastards 126: The pianist [...] he had us all singing, drinking and throwing money to beat hell into a big glass bowl.

a general intensifier; esp. as hope to hell, wish to hell to desire intensely; occas. as negating excl.

1881		F. Remington letter in Splete (1988) 30: There is not much hope in political circles [...] Jamie Hustard will be ‘cut to hell’.
1891		N. Gould Double Event 229: I hope to h— the horse will break his neck and his rider’s too.
1913–14		E. O’Neill Recklessness in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 139: Tell me you lie, damn you, or I’ll choke you to hell.
1928		D. Parker ‘A Telephone Call’ in Parker (1943) 27: Damn you to hell.
1939		(con. 1880–90s) S. O’Casey I Knock at the Door 260: Take your tram to hell out of this, back to where it came – quick! he ordered.
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 21: Now kind of take your goddam hoof to hell off my fender.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 438: Ah jus’ hope to hell Ah git over ’em tomorrow. [Ibid.] 543: Ah wish to hell that hole in mah belly would stop actin’ up.
1953		C. Brossard Bold Saboteurs (1971) 300: But, goddamn it to hell, I can’t seem to stay away from it.
1964		H.S. Thompson letter 25 Nov. in Proud Highway (1997) 474: I just wish to hell you could convince me.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 40: And then, Robin Hood, you’re to hell out of business.
1969		A. Fugard Boesman and Lena Act I: lena: I’ll fetch [it] from Swartkops tomorrow. boesman: To hell! He doesn’t belong to us.
1970		G. Scott-Heron Vulture (1996) 13: I bet my ol’ man wishes to hell he wuz havin’ hiz vacation in town.
1974		V.E. Smith Jones Men 132: We done heard some terrible shit about you [...] I hope to hell it ain’t true.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 64: Fuck it to hell [...] I wish I knew where there was an ironmonger’s that’s give us a bottle of blue.

(US) a very small amount, the least bit.

1917		A. Baer At the National Meeting 15 Dec. [synd. col.] Tener said he didn’t give a hoot in Hades whether he got the job or not.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 161: Tol’ that bastard Ah didn’t give a hoot in hell what he did.
1938		Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 6 Aug. 18/1: The boys [...] who play the game of politics [...] do so with a don’t give a whoop attitude for those in the ranks.
1948		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 12 June 23: Who wouldn’t give a whoop in hell about anything [...] if forced to exist in windowless rooms [etc].
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 294: All that means anything to you is playing the big shot. You don’t give a hoot in hell for anybody but yourself.
1959		‘Sheldon Lord’ Strange Kind of Love 66: I just kept typing, and I didn't give a whoop in hell if some other poor slob had to work the next morning and was having trouble sleeping.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 268: There were less than a half-dozen Angels who gave a hoot in hell what was happening on the Berkeley campus.

absolutely no chance at all.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: No more hope (or chance) than a Cat in hell without Claws. Said of any one who enters into a Dispute or Quarrel without being a Match.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn, 3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 24: ‘I boned you there, my boy’ — ‘You stand no more chance than a cat in — without claws’.
1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 198: There wouldn’t be a cat’s chance in hell with the pads.

absolutely no chance at all (cf. not have a snowball’s chance (in hell) ).

1894		New North-West (Deer Lodge, MT) 2 Nov. 4/3: A grub-stake was as rare as a snow-ball in hades.
1896		J.F. Lillard Poker Stories 54: A sucker had no more chance against those fellows than a snow-ball has in a red-hot oven.
1917		B.E.F. Times 15 Aug. (2006) 208/2: Speed, on a returning leave train, gets about as much chance as a snowball in hell.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 90: Making snowballs in hell would be an easier job.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 219: We got about as much chance as a snowball has in hell.
1937		W.M. Raine Cool Customer 22: You’ll last about as long as a snowball in hell.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 3: We didn’t stand the chance of an ice-cream cornet in hell.
1954		(con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 128: Colored man with a million dollars last in this town ’bout as long as a snowball in hell.

no chance whatsoever.

1923		O. Onions Peace in Our Time 37: ‘I rather fancied Lovelightly.’ ‘Lovelightly? Not a hope in Hell!’.
1932		D.L. Sayers Have His Carcase 448: If we do prosecute, d’you really think we’ve a hope in Hades?
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 119: Every time a Jerry dived, Greengage had a go. Not a hope in hell.
1950		S. Murphy Stone Mad (1966) 223: ‘Not a hope in hell,’ said Danny Melt. ‘Stone cutting is finished.’.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 96: They haven’t a hope in the hot place.
1992		J. Mowry Way Past Cool 223: He talkin the same ole dogshit bout how we just rag-ass little niggerboys, gots no hope in hell.

to have no chance at all.

1956		K. Amis letter 19 Apr. in Leader (2000) 467: The prof hasn’t a cat in hell’s chance of driving me out. But bugger him none the less.
1999		Indep. Mag. 4 Dec. 53: I know I haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of being the remotest bit good at it.

1. (also snowflake in hell) someone or something unwelcome or unpleasant.

1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 198: Now off we go to make ourselves as welcome as a snowflake in hell.
1992		R. Price Clockers 442: This lawyer he’s got. A real fucking bonehead. A real snowball in hell.

2. nothing.

1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 13: You can take it from me, old man, most of these damned rituals amount to a snowball in hell when you come to the goods.
1937		‘Boxcar Bertha’ Sister of the Road (1975) 163: They wouldn’t amount to a snowball in hell without me.

(Aus.) utterly useless.

1912

Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Sept. 15/2: But for station purposes it would be as useless as an egg in Hell.

for a very long or indefinite time, for ever; thus (W.I.) from hell freeze.

1866		London Standard 27 Nov. 3/2: [from Our Own Correspondent, NY, Nov. 14] The south will have no part in the government again until hell freezes over.
1868		N.-Y. Trib. 5 Mar. 4/6: Listen to Zebulon B. Vance as he addresses a regiment of Confederate soldiers: ‘Boys, fight till hell freezes over, and then fight on the ice.’ ‘Fight until you fill hell so full of Yankees that their feet will stick out the windows.’.
1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 18 Jan. 3/2: There he’s like to vait, to my mind, till there’s a hoar frost in Sheol.
1894		Western Mail 10 Jan. 7/7: I am in favour of fighting for free coinage at 16 to 1 [...] until hell freezes over.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 288: This is where I pass it [i.e. alcohol] up, not for a while, but until hell freezes over.
1907		J. London Road 137: ‘When I get back to Chicago,’ he perorated, ‘I’m going to get a job and stick to it till hell freezes over.’.
1918		A.N. Depew Gunner Depew 203: That was just like the Limeys, though. They will carry on, to use a well-known expression, ‘till hell freezes over’.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 148: He can hold down the fast ones till hell freezes over.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 698: Harold Morgan is agonna stick right in here until hades freezes over.
1940		E. Hemingway letter 23 Aug. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 511: I can stay till hell freezes over.
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 18: Tell that quack he can get my money when hell freezes over!
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 21: You could whip head till hell freezes over, but hell is still hell.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 18: My dog always waited outside the fence until hell froze or I returned.
2003		T. Harrelson From Hell to Redemption 457: We’ll be here till hell freezes over before I’ll send a white boy to jail for having a little fun at the expense of a stupid coon!

1. far away, godforsaken; usu. as to hell and gone

1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 103: ‘Don’t worry, Kitten [...] I’ll bet you live to hell and gone’.
1938		C. Himes ‘A Modern Fable’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 414: [H]is [forbears] were scattered to hell and gone all over the European continent and the island of England.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 170: We run all over hell and gone trying to get rid of him for you.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 140: People put [prison] camps down [...] way to hell and gone in the desert.
1958		C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 36: By ten o’clock tomorrow morning the killer ought to be hell and gone to another part of the United States.
1972		G.V. Higgins Friends of Eddie Coyle 136: God [...] that’s way up and hell and gone.

2. a long time ago.

1934

(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 191: Studs thought of how he hadn’t had a fight since hell-and-gone.

(US) an extremely large area; the second half of the phr. varies according to the speaker’s locality, e.g. hell and part of Groton, hell and half of New York state.

1959		Vermont Hist. 27.141: All over Hell and part of Groton...Everywhere [DARE].
1984		R. Wilder You All Spoken Here 72: All over hell and half of Georgia: A considerable area, especially if you’re a-lookin’ for somebody.

(orig. US) in all directions, disarray, confusion.

1878		F.H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 147: Great heavens, maria! [...] we’re blowed hellwest and crooked.
1898		H.S. Canfield Maid of Frontier 100: Break ’em with a snaffle, an’ they bolt hell-western crooked [DA].
1907		S.E. White Arizona Nights III 252: This event sure knocks me hell-west and crooked.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 580: knock one hell west and crooked, v. phr. To strike one with great force. ‘When he stepped onto the track the train struck him and just knocked him hell west and crooked’.
1918		H.L. Fox What the ‘Boys’ Did Over There 53: When it was exploded it blew up the entire town and also blew 61000 Huns ‘Hell, west and crooked.’.
1943		F. Clune Tobruk to Turkey 108: They stampeded our trucks hell, west, and crooked.
2001		McKay & Nicholas Jungle Tracks 50: The squadron was deployed hell west and crooked all over Phuoc Tuy Province.

(W.I., Guyn.) a general intensifier.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

1. very far away, a very long time.

1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 74: Sal, you let go uv the varmint’s head; and Potter – you give the all-firedest kind on er jerk, and sling him to h-ll and gone!
1865		W. Hilleary diary 21 Nov. A Webfoot Volunteer (1965) 132: He sold the hay for twenty tons, and on looking at the small heap remarked that: ‘Lots of it he’es blown to hell and gone’.
1880		Republican Campaign Text Book 202: I will drive you to hell and gone.
1914		R. Lardner ‘Horseshoes’ Coll. Short Stories (1941) 257: When they’re through with me they’ll ship em to Hellangone, and I’ll be draggin’ down about seventy-five bucks a month.
1919		C. Sandburg letter 21 May in Mitgang (1968) 163: Lean races take what they want and a too swiney girth leads to hellangone.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 226: Den I shipped out and went everywhere to hell an gone.
1927		B. Cormack Racket Act I: This is Miller again, out to hellangone.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 60: That was why they sent you to hell-and-gone out at Barcoo.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Situation Wanted’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 662: He says it is to hell and gone from here.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 311: ‘I’m off.’ ‘Where?’ ‘To hell and gone if what he said was true.’.
1949		(con. 1943–5) A. Murphy To Hell and Back (1950) 30: The ignoramus has been shooting up churches from here to hell and gone.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 97: The Mover lives to hell and gone from my precint.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 66: Eight big iron men all shot to hell and gone.
1969		C. Himes Blind Man with a Pistol (1971) 39: If the suspect did it, he’ll be to hell and gone by the time you get the block sealed off.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 740: I might just pull the trigger [...] Blow your shit-factory all to hell and gone.
2001		J. Logan Railroad to Hell 178: Finding the bomb in time to keep it from blowing the train to hell and gone.

2. (also to hell and back) irretrievably, thoroughly, enormously.

1920		R. Lardner Big Town i: When the war broke loose and leather went up to hell and gone I and my wife thought he would get prosperous.
1922		P.A. Rollins Cowboy 192: I’ll skin you alive, and mash in your sides to hell and gone.
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 108: The fellows came back from the woods and said they hunted to hell and gone and only found an old house.
1927		(con. 1914–18) L. Nason Three Lights from a Match 223: You can’t go down that road. They’re shellin’ it to hell an’ gone.
1947		F. Brown Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 139: Thanks to hell and back, Bunny.
1952		E. Brown Trespass 139: Still the pain came to ride herd through her, to stampede her insides all to hell and gone.
1959		B. Hecht Sensualists (1961) 54: You just lead. I’ll follow to hell and back.
1961		C. Bingham Run Tough, Run Hard n.p.: So the hell with Brett Sayers. Damn him to hell and gone. A no-goodnik from Creepville.
1961		R. Gover One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 76: He done huff an puff his way t’hell an back!
1966		C. Himes Run Man Run (1969) 40: Bastard son of a bitch all to hell and gone.

1. in all directions, everywhere.

1862		letter q. in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 78: [The regiment] was scattered from Hell to Breakfast.
1874		Tri-Weekly Astorian (OR) 31 Jan. 2/1: Jeff Davis called H.S. Foote ‘constitutionally a liar’ in 1871 [...] and it was distributed [...] from hell to breakfast in the telegraphic dispateches.
1887		Daily Yellowstone Jrnl (Montana) 3 June 3/3: His benchmen undertook to reform everything from hell to breakfast.
1889		Wash. Post 11 Nov. 4: Colonel Watterson said, ‘It is a Democratic cyclone from Cape Cod to Kalamazoo; from Alpha to Omega; from hell to breakfast’.
1896		Semi-Weekly Interior Jrnl (Stanford, KY) 16 June 2/1: The republican hosts from Cape Cod to Kalamazoo and from hell to breakfast have captured St Louis, lock, stock and barrel.
1901		Norfold Wkly News (NE) 7 June 7/1: I reckon you would git hostile if any hombre booted you from blazes to breakfast.
1904		Muskogee Cimeter (OK) 10 Nov. 4/4: It seems to us it would put a candidate in a position that he would be bled from hell to breakfast.
1918		Wash. Times (Wash., DC) 13 July 4/5: When your clothes and boots and blankets [...] Are soaked from Hell to Breakfast.
1920		N.Y. Times 15 Feb. E2: To use his own phrase, everybody ‘from hell to breakfast’--greets and heartily congratulates Colonel Watterson.
1949		A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 73: Barrow and Bonnie continues to take pictures from hell to breakfast.
1955		‘Blackie’ Audett Rap Sheet 33: I guess he turned over every rock and cinder from hell to breakfast for clues.
1961		R. Tregaskis X-15 Diary (2004) 26: The Edwards buildings are scattered from hell to breakfast — big hunks of hangars plunked down in the middle of nowhere.
1974		Quimby & Chapman National Nutrition Policy 88: [...] activities which are now scattered, as Hegsted says, ‘from hell to breakfast.’.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 269: It’d fallen most of the way back down the stairs, spillin letters n Bangor Hydro bills n L.L. Bean catalogues from hell to breakfast.
2003		J.R. Tueller Teacher and Puddin’ Head 44: Stock’s scattered all over the range from hell to breakfast.

2. (also from boots to breakfast, from here to Christmas) decisively, violently.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 73: He cursed her from boots to breakfast.
1915		Wash. Post 17 Jan. 13: You wait; I’ll rip that dance business from hell to breakfast and back again.
1939		Derby Dly Teleg. 22 Sept. 1/1: ‘From Hell to Breakfast Fight’ [...] One of the Senators present commented [...] ‘On that we are going to fight from hell to breakfast’.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 5: You’re going to kick old pigface Gooring from hell to breakfast.
1967		J. Schaefer Mavericks (1968) 109: I’ll larrup you from here to Christmas.
2004		in D.K. Johnson Lavender Scare 102: Do it thoroughly — investigate it from hell to breakfast.

3. for a long time, for a long distance.

1917		Wash. Post 29 Apr. S3: If thats so, Joe’d foller him f’m hell to breakfast, bein’s he onc’t set out.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 415: He’ll put her across if he has to ride from hell to breakfast.
1955		T. Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Act II: I’ll strip her naked [...] and hump her from hell to breakfast.
1997		W. Kloefkorn This Death by Drowning 5: Work for the county long enough [...] and you’ll end up strung out in bottles all the way from hell to breakfast.

4. to a very great extent.

1917		Van Loan ‘Eliphaz, Late Fairfax’ Old Man Curry 169: I would have bet on him from hell to breakfast.
1948		N. Nye Breed of the Chaparral (1949) 91: Jess would daub them from hell to breakfast.
1994		E.F. Fisher Guardians of the Republic (2001) 267: [He had] lieutenant colonels ‘who had screwed things up from hell to breakfast’ transferred and made colonels just to get them out of the way.

extensively, to a great degree.

1821–6

‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 145: He has been kicking us this whole blessed morning from hell to Hackney.

rushed, hurriedly, at top speed.

1909		Overland Monthly (CA) Mar. liii 235: So there he were, comfortable as any old-fashioned saint, an’ stuffin’ his stomach hell for breakfast.
1922		N.Y. Times 29 Oct. 47: But should it be a man with a brand-new taxi, or a driver qualifying for motor delivery, the chase may be a very merry one, for the experienced driver starts out at a speed known by pious New Englanders as ‘hell for breakfast.’.
1943		Reader’s Digest 115/2: She and the cans went snorting out, hell-for-breakfast after the sub [DA].
1972		D. Pendleton Boston Blitz (1974) 60: He [...] probably had them running hell-for-breakfast all over the place.

rip-roaring, a general intensifier.

1927		Sun. Express (London) 10 July 4: A long line of stage coaches starting on a hell-for-leather race .
1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 96: His brown face was alight with an absurdly boyish and hell-for-leather enthusiasm.
1936		N. Page ‘Secret Guns’ in Thrilling Western May 🌐 That outlaw is making Peaceful Pueblo into a regular hell-an’-leather bandit section.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 141: I’m a hell-for-leatherneck [pun on marine] and tonight’s my last night to howl. [Ibid.] 243: You’re going to be the best hell-for-leather platoon in the whole Marine Corps.
1963		H.S. Thompson letter 23 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 390: He ran a tough, hell-for-leather show as director of Fomento.

extremely fast.

1943

R.L. Bellem ‘Feature Snatch!’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Feb. 🌐 A roadster without headlights darted out of a foggy side-road, hellity-blip.

1. very fast, at top speed, rip-roaringly.

1889		Kipling Story of Gadsbys (1891) 116: Here, Gaddy, take the note to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather.
1893		Kipling Many Inventions 47: I perceived a gunner-orf’cer in full rig’mentals perusin’ down the road, hell-for-leather, wid his mouth open.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 41: Tell him I fancied I saw his horse going for the Connelly paddock, and I shot after him hell-for-leather.
1916		R. Service ‘Afternoon Tea’ Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 187: That little job was over, so hell for leather we ran.
1926		N. Lucas London and its Criminals 23: Immediately they stole a car they drove it ‘hell for leather’ to their headquarters.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 51: I was just in time to see Gentleman Joe astride the frame of one of Sainsbury’s delivery cycles with a messenger boy pedalling him hell for leather down the hill.
1949		S. O’Casey Cock-A-Doodle-Dandy Act III: A girl runnin’ this way, hell for leather.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 49: A rozzer was after you hell for leather.
1960		H.E. Bates When the Green Woods Laugh (1985) 244: Everything grows ’ell for leather.
1976		G.V. Higgins Judgement of Deke Hunter 119: Up the guy comes out of the ditch on his tractor, hell-bent for leather and hollering like a banshee.
1988		R. McGough An Imaginary Menagerie 66: Squeeze through the bars / run hell for leather.
1990		E. Ruggero 38 North Yankee 296: We been going hell-bent-for-leather since we rolled off the ship.

2. vehemently.

1914		E. Dyson Spats’ Fact’ry (1922) 92: Well, I did ’appen t’ want one [i.e. a wife] ’ell for leather.
1999		Guardian G2 27 Sept. 6: Anji and I went hell for leather [...] it was typical Anji: fighting her corner tenaciously.

(orig. US campus) to leave, to depart, e.g. if you don’t want to stay here, then get the hell..., usu. with a place-name.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 16: ‘Get t’ ’ell outer this!’ said the packer.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 17: ‘Youse get t’hell outer here!’ she croaked. ‘Get out!’.
1930		D. Ahearn How to Commit a Murder 224: Get the hell out of here.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 35: Get the hell over there.
1949		Sun. Herald (Sydney) 20 Nov. 1s/4: I’ll grind it into your herring-gutted innards and rip them out if you don’t get the hell out of here.
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 17: The policeman growled, ‘Get your fat -- the hell out of here before you get rolled’.
1955		C. Himes ‘Daydream’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 363: Drop those guns and get the hell off.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 95: Get the hell outta here and let me be sick by my goddam self.
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 211: He had to get the hell out of there.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 161: You and Tina had better get the hell out of here and don’t come back.
1999		Guardian G2 26 July 8: Made me want to get the hell out and never ever come back.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 6: It became a way of getting the hell out of those ghettoes.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] Paul stood, leaning against the doorjamb [...] looking like he was aching to get the hell out.

see under Dodge n.

(orig. US) to move exceptionally fast.

1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 577: go like a bat through hell, v. phr. To move swiftly or wildly. ‘When I saw him he was going like a bat through hell’.
1944		Gloucester Citizen 19 Oct. 2/4: When it’s [i.e. a plane] flat out it goes like a bat out of hell.
1961		I. Fleming Thunderball 87: The motor cyclist [...] had gone like a bat out of hell towards Baker Street.
1978		‘Meatloaf’ ‘Bat Out of Hell’ 🎵 Like a bat out of hell I’ll be gone gone gone / Like a bat out of hell I’ll be gone.
1988		W.N. Beath Death of James Dean 13: The man who fills your tank [...] will tell you, when asked, ‘He came out of those hills like a bat out of hell.’.
1992		M. Miyabe All She Was Worth (1999) 92: Then [...] this young guy comes hurtling out of your door like a bat out of hell.
2002		F.J. Delery I Have a Dream 5: After throwing something on, I got out of the vicinity like a bat out of hell.

to go very fast, to be very busy.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 7/2: ’E starts cussin’ like mad an’ me an’ the ole ’oss goes like ’ell.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Nov. 11/1: The crouching curate scoots ahead; / The vicar roars along like thunder; [...] / ‘Beware of going like the Devil / Upon the Lord’s work here and there.’.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 161: They’re half-way to London by now, and going like hell if I know Ted.
1927		A.R.D. Fairburn letter Edmond Letters (1981) Sept.–Oct. 26: I [...] have been going like hell with rehearsals and dentists and one thing and another.
1941		Aberdeen Jrnl 12 June 1/3: This is not a blitzkrieg. We are not trying to go like hell’s bells destroying everything.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 51: The cab had two speeds: stop and golikefuckinghell.

to go very fast.

1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 181: The engine pounded past me like the hammers of hell going at once.
1939		‘Flann O’Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 240: Three of your men fall into it when it is working full blast, going like the hammers of hell.
1949		K. Amis letter 6 Oct. in Leader (2000) 215: The bloody blacks chasin’ each other round the warehouses wavin’ their razors, and me goin’ like the ’ammers of fuck the other road.
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 49: Down like the hammers of hell, along the canal bank and down to Binn’s Bridge.
1962		B. McGhee Cut and Run (1963) 34: The driver kept the tramcar going like the hammers of hell.
1974		(con. 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 71: ‘It’s goin like hammers,’ he exclaimed.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 347: I must have gone like the hammers of hell, for I was suddenly in Fir House.
1991		K.C. Kearns Dublin Street Life and Lore 179: What he most feared were the ‘wild’ cattle that would tear ‘hammers out of hell’ down the street leaving death and destruction in their wake.
2018		J.-P. Jordan Joys of War 89: I’d be [sic] going like the hammers of hell to make this task work .

(Aus.) to cause a great deal of trouble or disturbance.

[1866		S. Gilpin Songs and Ballads of Cumberland 224: Because he knew reet weel sud he / Set up his gob, directly she / Would kick up hell’s delight i’th’ house].
1872		Aus. Jrnl VII 457/1: I mean to kick up hell’s delight with Sharker ; he don't know who's who on the creek. I'll open his eyes afore long.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 July 14/2: He was kicking up Hell’s delight, and there being no J.P. beyant nearer than Baker’s Crossing, I saved all trouble by fining him on the spot.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 444: You see it’s about time to wind up, I reckon. Too muchee long time eatin’ and drinkin’ and kickin’ up hell’s delight no good.

to cause a great deal of fuss.

c.1926		‘The Mixer’ Transport Workers’ Song Bk 13: We don’t get drunk to fight the boss / Or kick up merry hell [OED].
1931		J.T. Farrell ‘Big Jeff’ Short Stories (1937) 52: The gravediggers cursed all holy hell when they lowered his crated body.
1968		P. Terson Apprentices (1970) II iii: Well, don’t just accept it, beat against it, go back home and kick up merry hell.
1981		W. Boyd Good Man in Africa 177: ‘There are about two thousand demonstrators outside the High Commission here raising merry hell’.
1993		(con. 1945) S. McAughtry Touch and Go 100: When he got home Briege kicked up holy hell.

to cause absolute chaos (cf. hell and (little) tommy ; hell and tommy! ).

1819		G. Butt Peep at the Wilts. Assizes 31: They’ve [...] / play’d ‘Hell and Tommy’ and the Devil, / And caus’d a multitude of evil.
1827		Annual Register 309/2: Studies then being over, out of doors with you in all weathers — play hell and tommy — make as much row as your lungs will admit of — chase cats, dogs, women, young and old.
1830		R.B. Peake Haunted Inn II i: I can speak French to you [...] bung up both votre yeaux, and joué hell and tommy avec vous.
1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 213: Them sacra diabola foutera English [...] hang their priests, seize their galls, and play hell and Tommy with them, and all because they speak French.
1845		T. Moore Poetical Works 511: ’Twas only ‘Hell and Jemmy,’ / Or ‘Hell and Tommy’ that he play’d.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 23 Oct. 2/4: The luckless barber forked out the tin and left the court vowing he would play ‘’ell and tommy’ with Mr Woods.
1850		N&Q Ser. 2 XII 167/1: It is quite common to hear one enraged party threaten to ‘play hell and Tommy’ with the other.
1860		Smith & Thackeray in Cornhill Mag. Jan–June I 548: That dam’ cat of yours has got loose, and is raising Hell and Tommy in the store-room.
1879		‘’Arry on the Rail’ in Punch 13 Sept. 109/1: If we didn’t raise thunder and tommy, old chap, it’s a caution to Jones.
1881		E. Edwards Words, Facts, and Phrases 272: Hell and Tommy. In some parts of England it is very common for an angry man to threaten another that he will ‘play hell and tommy’ with him.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Dec. 3/1: [T]hey immediately go out and raise thunder with everybody they stack up against or can hunt ut>.
1894		G.F. Northall Folk-Phrases of Four Counties 29: To play Hell and Tommy with one.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 11 Feb. 1/3: If it don’t swallow down / The say-so of the Crown— / There’ll be Tommy to pay and no square ‘If’.
1901		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 262: It’ll play h--l and Tommy with the sheep in the Ban Ban Paddock.

1. to damage (an object, a plan etc).

1900		E. Lacey Plays and Sonnets 129: Your French horns / Play merry hell with Jupiter’s last speech .
1941		Western Mail (Perth) 24 July 10/4: Old Musso an’ ’Itler playing merry hell over there.
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 86: Sampling dishes he knows will play hell with his digestion later.
1950		J.T. Farrell ‘Milly and the Porker’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 196: This is feedin’ time, and now work will ruin my digestion, play hell with my liver.
1968		P. Terson Apprentices (1970) II iv: It’ll play hell with her legs. She’ll lose them good legs.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 116: Travel plays merry hell with a decent suit.
2004		A. O’Reilly Sound of Battle 97: Schedules, Annie; play merry hell with your love life.

2. to give someone a hard time.

1918		J.M. Grider War Birds (1926) 100: The Hun has played hell with the troops in France and they need help.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 7: He likes to play hell with people who can’t defend themselves.
1933		(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 224: He had played up holy hell with the Colonel.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 519: Plays hell on a man when he don’t get his ass regular.
1948		R.L. Bellem ‘Death Ends the Scene’ Hollywood Detective May 🌐 I was playing merry hell with the speed laws; my speedometer showed sixty and it was still climbing.
1961		B. Fergusson Watery Maze 102: The Special Boat Squadron [...] was to play merry hell in the Eastern Mediterranean during the next two years .
1972		M. DeMellow Remembered Glory 20: ‘We will play merry hell into the enemy’, and he used some choice invectives on the Pak troops facing him.
1976		L. Dawson The Spy Who Came... 81: He played holy hell with me.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 1: I told you your wife would give you merry hell about buying that day-old bread.
1999		Indep. Rev. 27 Sept. 4: Then we moved [...] back to Carlisle again, which played hell with my accent.
2006		C. Caruth Line of Duty 79: He can play merry hell if he gets it in to his head to do something. If he starts playing you up, he can be an absolute menace.

3. to act aggressively.

1936

B. Newman German Spy 239: For twelve hours — perhaps twenty-four hours — we must play merry hell.

1. (orig. US) to cause a good deal of trouble deliberately; to make a fuss.

1792		Amer. State Papers (1832) 244: He would [...] do every mischief in his power [...] he would raise hell to prevent a peace.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 276: The old voman may rouse hell’s delight about her loss.
1858		G.W. Harris ‘Sut Lovingood’s Adventures in New York’ N.Y. Atlas XXI Aug. in Inge (1967) 138: I hed suckseeded in raisin’ h--l generally.
1866		H.L. Williams N.-Y. After Dark 32: Raise h--- in the old hag’s crib? – that’s me.
1875		F. Remington letter 13 June in Splete (1988) 11: The fellows raised H-- with him.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 54: They [...] turned everything upside down, and raised h[el]l generally.
1894		C.W. Gardner Doctor and the Devil 40: Parkhurst has been raising hell.
1895		S. Crane Red Badge of Courage (1964) 22: They’re raising blazes all over camp.
1900		Sporting Times 9 June 3/3: They want to see me raise hell with the management an’ break things.
1901		Monroe & Northup ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:iii 141: Hades, n. In phrase ‘to raise Hades,’ to carry on. ‘He raised merry Hades’.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 381: Oh, she raised hell with him all right.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 189: Look here! I’ve come to raise particular merry hell, unless you have that fellow pinched, I will!
1922		Dundee Courier 24 Mar. 7/4: We’ll [...] raise blazes round here until we find her.
1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 85: She always raises hell here, without intending to.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 207: He’d raise blue hell, I’m tellin’ you!
1929		‘Max Brand’ Rustlers of Beacon Creek (1935) 139: I’d like to know from you [...] why you started raisin’ heck so hard?
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 162: I’ll just raise all holy hell with him.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 51: Tell your wife. Tell your neighbours. Tell your sister-in-law. Raise hell.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 238: Dem two women — her and my nasty wife — raise merry hell.
1946		Aberdeen Jrnl 31 Oct. 6/1: [advert] That’s what you have a right to expect [...] If you don’t, you may [...] raise blazes with the Manager.
1949		A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 60: Let’s go out and raise hell, Daddy [...] Let’s go and murder people. Like Clyde and Bonnie are doing.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 23: His old man had raised a lot of hell in his day.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 61: It’s [i.e. heroin] a derivative of opium and it’s been raising hell with the world ever since Dressen stumbled on it.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 136: It was put down as an accident and it really raised holy hell.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 41: These Nordic ‘blondas’ still raise hell in the Mediterranean.
1988		R.R. Moore ‘Signifying Monkey’ 🎵 Look muthafucka, ain’t you a bitch, you ain’t raisin no hell / Cause everybody saw you jump on me after I slipped and fell.
1993		T. Jones Pugilist at Rest 60: I heard him raising hell.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 262: They’d come over from Jasper and raise hell.