the hell
English
Adverb
- (mildly vulgar) Used to indicate emphatic rejection of an assertion.
- A: I can run faster than a horse.
- B: The hell you can!
- (mildly vulgar) Expletive used for emphasis after an interrogative term or relative pronoun.
- 2009 February 19, Gareth Lewis, Southern Daily Echo:
- "Whoever the hell is running the place now has made a terrible mess of it," he said... "Not in the sense that it looks different, or that it isn't pretty much permanently full. It's just that the food as gone utterly down the khazi."
- What the hell was that?
- 2009 February 19, Gareth Lewis, Southern Daily Echo:
Synonyms
- (rejection): like hell, the hell you say; hell (postpositional)
- (expletive): See Thesaurus:the dickens
Translations
Interjection
- (mildly vulgar) Ellipsis of what the hell: an exclamation indicating surprise or dismay.
- 2013, Jonathan Latimer, The Lady in the Morgue, ISBN 9781471910715, (Google books online):
- “She said she had a date later!”
- “The hell!” exclaimed Crane.
- 2013, Jonathan Latimer, The Lady in the Morgue, ISBN 9781471910715, (Google books online):
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.