Green’s Dictionary of Slang

late 19C US euph. synon. for I’ll be damned! under damn v.

1891

Sun. Herald (Wash., DC) 9 Aug. 13/1: But I’ll be blazed if he didn’t wink at me, that critter.

completely out of order.

1882		E.S. Ellis Huge Hunter in Beadle’s Half Dime Library XI:271 6/3: These new-fangled things generally go well at first, and then, afore yer know it, they bu’st all to blazes.
1899		A. Binstead Gal’s Gossip 136: The Biffins cad said the meter was ‘all wrong to blazes’.
1920		P.G. Wodehouse Jill the Reckless 92: And this morning Amalgamated Dyestuffs went all to blazes.
1940		F. Sargeson ‘Good Samaritan’ in A Man And His Wife (1944) 78: He said he was all to blazes [...] he was upset I could see.

to decline, to collapse.

1838		‘Paul Pry’ Oddities of London Life I 48: ‘I vish I may go to blazes,’ says the lady, ‘if it [i.e. a task] ain't as right as a trivet’.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 21 Sept. n.p.: Bob told him he could go to blazes if he liked.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes III 30: Mille murthers! there go the praties to blazes.
1855		Cork Examiner 3 Dec. 4/4: Now, you’ll all go to blases [sic] together.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Jan. 13/1: The proposition to burn the Mallee (Vic.) scrub in order to get rid of the rabbits is practically letting the question ‘go to blazes’.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 8/3: What [he] really wishes to imply is that they mean getting the oof, even though they have to go to blazes for it.
1906		Eve. Star (Washington, DC) 30 Sept. 39/2: I wouldn’t bother you with the young cub. I’d cut him adrift and let him go to blazes.
1922		‘Sapper’ Black Gang 378: The ’ole ruddy place is gone to blazes.
1934		P. Allingham Cheapjack 218: Look here, Peters, you know the business is going to blazes.

see knock (the) hell of out under hell, the phr.

energetically, passionately.

1810		Morn. Post (London) 2 July 3/3: Many orces the enemy raises / [...] / To cut through our regiments like blazes.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome IV 221: He’d cap a bar Like blazes.
1820		Gettysburg Compiler (PA) 26 July 3: She hit me a tarnation slap [...] then ran off like the blazes.
1823		E. Moor Suffolk Words and Phrases n.p.: Like blazes, that is, furiously.
1833		‘Life In London’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 11: The yokels all are floor’d with fright, / So full of yawns and gazes; That up to town to see the sight, / They’re pouring in like blazes.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 232: Take a stick and give him a rael good quiltin, jist tantune him like blazes, and set him to work.
1844		‘Jonathan Slick’ High Life in N.Y. I 172: Would you think it right if a feller was tu come out like all blazes agin one of your letters in the Express, if he hadn’t read ’em?
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend II 13: The coats of your stomach being irritated by your disorder, they have raked it like blazes.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 5/1: One of the ‘guns’ [...] not noticing his ‘judy,’ [...] took a ‘granny’ at one of the private ‘lush’ boxes, where he ‘piped’ her and a noted ‘gun,’ ‘lushing’ like blazes.
1878		‘’Arry to the Front!’ in Punch 9 Mar. 100/2: Steam’s hup, and we go it like blazes.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 10/2: [He] opened the door of the hearse, skipped in, kissed his hand to his former employer, and briskly told the driver to ‘drive on like blazes.’ The great Cham of Humour stood at the door looking after the solemn turn-out as it rattled gaily up the street [...].
1890		H. Fludyer Letters 31: The cunning old rascal found me out, and barked like blazes for joy.
1904		Marvel 22 Oct. 16: Request the astonished driver to ‘crack on like blazes for Waterloo’.
1907		Gem 16 Mar. 11: He’ll snap like blazes, and it’s good-bye to your arm if he gets hold.
1909		Truth (Brisbane) 21 Mar. 13/7: They has got to graft like blazes / For to get a bit of bread.
1913		A. Lunn Harrovians 39: You’ve all jolly well got to sweat like blazes, or you’ll get the skin taken off your backs.
1922		A. Brown Old Crow 319: Things hurt you like blazes.
1922		E. Raymond Tell England (1965) 192: Balls in! Shove like blazes!
1930		W.S. Maugham Bread-Winner Act I: He’ll have to work like blazes.
1946		H.A. Smith Rhubarb 10: There are scalps that itch like blazes.
1953		L. Doyle Back to Ballygullion 181: Run like blazes, now.
1970		T. Parker Frying-Pan 207: I’d have been working like blazes to find every scrap of assistance I could.
1982		E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 97: They were all wide awake, filling their clay pipes and puffing like blazes.
1993		I. Rankin Black Book (2000) 290: His leg was hurting like blazes.

the Devil.

1845		W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 49: All the hair was off his head, and his face was as black as the very old blazes.
1849		Southern Literary Messenger June n.p.: He looked, upon my word, like Old Blazes himself, with his clothing all on fire, and rage and despair in his face.

see raise hell under hell n.

a general excl.

1834		Newry Examiner 22 Nov. 4/1: Oh, blazes! what’s this?
1869		Ottowa Free Trader (IL) 8 May 11/1: Blazes! What are you biting me for?

an excl. of dismissal, both of the person and their opinion or statement.

1811		Guy Fawkes’ Day in Satirist 1 Dec. 421: Stagger. These may a something yield—at least I’ll try ’em. Par. Phil. You go to blazes!
1832		Metropolitan Mthly Jan. 58: Mr. Harper then gave King a kick in the face, and, in the most gentlemanly manner, bid him go to blazes.
1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 24 Feb. 135: You, and your friend, and Mr. Sharpem, may all go to blazes together.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 114: Go to blazes with you!
1860		Melbourne Punch 9 Aug. 6/2: ‘Slangiana’ [...] Come, Bella, do, ‘tis beastly rot / Let’s hook it — Cremorne go to blazes.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 256/1: There was then a rapid and interrupted colloquy, in which the most frequent words were: ‘Go to blazes!’ with retorts of ‘You go to blazes!’.
1864		Soldier’s Jrnl (Richmond, VA) 10 Aug. 7/2: ‘Go to blazes with your conundrums,’ cried he.
1877		E.L. Wheeler Deadwood Dick in Beadle’s Half Dime Library I:1 82/3: ‘Go to blazes!’ shouts back Jehu.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Mar. n.p.: Mr dear Parkes, – See you blowed first: go to blazes.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer II 63: Go to blazes! Five hundred more likely.
1893		G. Parker Mrs Falchion 271: Any other yarn-spinner would have killed the male idiot by murder, or a drop from a precipice, or a lingering fever ; but Clovelly did the thing with delicate torture. He said, ' Go to blazes,' and he fixed up that marriage — and there you are !
1898		Dly Sth Kentuckian (Hopkinsonville, KY) 15 June 3/1: ‘Take it down!’ roared the officer. ‘Go to blazes!’ retorted Evans.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 Ch. iii: Mebby you kin go to blazes. I ain’t no gallery.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 282: I told him to go to blazes.
1914		‘Bartimeus’ ‘The Argonauts’ in Naval Occasions 34: ‘What did he say?’ [...] ‘Said we could take the third cutter, an’ go to Blazes in her.’.
1915		E. Poole Harbor (1919) 168: Your nice little Puritanical codes can all go to blazes.
1922		E. Raymond Tell England (1965) 48: ‘Go to blazes,’ I said, ‘and take your vulgar guffaws with you.’.
1930		L. Lower Here’s Luck 156: ‘Oh, go to blazes!’ I said, and walked away.
1932		J. Dixon Free To Love 258: ‘Go to blazes!’ came the hoarse defiance from within.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Winter Feeding the Herd’ in Me And Gus (1977) 82: He said that [...] he intended to go home, and I could go to blazes.
1953		L. Doyle Back to Ballygullion 180: ‘Go, go, go,’ he shouts. ‘Go to blazes.’.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 114: You don’t know whether she’s [...] going for the poker now so she can crack you over the head and tell you to go to blazes.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 57: When these terms were used together [...] they magnified each other and were to be understood as meaning go to blazes.

used interrogatively in a general excl.

1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 62: What the blazes can be more unfair.
1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 727: ‘Pell,’ he used to say to me many a time. ‘How the blazes you can stand the head-work you do, is a mystery to me.’.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 135: What the blazes is in the wind now?
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Oct. 3/2: Tracey [...] demanded from another apartment what the blazes he wanted.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 13/2: Why the blaizes did we not tell him that before.
1868		H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 22: Where the blazes is the ‘dough’ to come from?
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 13: And bellowed from the shrouds, ‘Hi! what the blazes! who are you?’.
1879		C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 99: Why the blazes didn’t he fire?
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 245: How the blazes did he know the police were laid on to the lot of us?
1890		Sporting Times 18 Jan. 1: Shakespeare’s, no Shakspere’s, no Shakespere’s (Oh, why the blazes couldn’t he spell his name one way) great tragedy macbeth.
1893		S. Crane Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (2001) 12: Why deh blazes don’ chere try teh kep Jim from fightin’?
1898		Regiment 14 May 95: [cartoon caption] [T]he sergeant wanted to know what the blazes he was marking time for.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 39: ‘I want you to put me next.’ ‘What the blazes do you come to me about “next” for? I ain’t next to nothin’ in this town except you dead ones at the Front Office.’.
1900		Marvel XIV:358 2: Who the blazes d’ ye think yew’re hustlin’?
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 94: What the blazes attracts a chap like you to such a peep-show as this?
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 8 Apr. 4/7: Why the blazes shouldn’t they regard you as a gent.
1908		D. Stewart Wild Tribes of London in Illus. Police News 15 Feb. 12/2: ‘How the blazes did you get away?’.
1909		Gem 23 Jan. 22: What in blazes do you mean by going off like that?
1910		L. Esson Woman Tamer in Ballades of Old Bohemia (1980) 71: What the blazing!
1912		J. London Smoke Bellew Pt 8 🌐 You an’ me has a month’s grub [...] which is one hundred an’ eighty meals. Here’s two hundred Indians, with real, full-grown appetites. How the blazes can we give’m one meal even?
1916		Poison Gas Feb. I :1 7: Why the blazes can’t the jugginses who make these things make some that will light?
1924		‘Digit’ Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo 21: What the blazes do you think you are doing?
1925		Age (Melbourne) 24 July 13/5: ‘Well, who the blazes was he?’ I cried.
1927		Nichols & Tully Twenty Below Act I: What the blazes is that to you?
1934		O. Strange Sudden 109: Where the blazes is the body?
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 30: Well why the blazes haven’t you been down?
1946		G. Gibson Enemy Coast Ahead (1955) 168: Why the blazes [...] didn’t they put a large force on the factory the first night.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 267: What the blazes are you doing out there?
1957		‘Nino Culotta’ They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 13: How difficult it is for the foreigner, who has learned good English from books, to understand what the blazes they are yapping about!
1958		Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 279: You do not need to [...] ask what the blazes the two cissies are doing.
1961		T. Williams Night of the Iguana Act I: What in blazes is this?
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class I iii: If my nephew’s bonkers, why the blazes did you let him out?
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 31: And what the blazes is crawlin’ on you?
1979		Fantastic Four Annual 40: What in blazes are you lookin’ so all-fired grim about?
1982		G.V. Higgins Patriot Game (1985) 17: What in blazes are you doing here?
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 342: Who the blazes is Marge?
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 255: Where in blazes did you three clowns get to?
2011		Independent 2 June 24/4: What the blazes?
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 252: ‘I don’t even know who in blazes you mean’.