hellish

adjective

hell·​ish ˈhe-lish How to pronounce hellish (audio)
: of, resembling, or befitting hell
broadly : terrible
hellishly adverb
hellishness noun

Examples of hellish in a Sentence

We've been having hellish weather lately. The battlefield was a hellish scene of death and destruction.
Recent Examples on the Web Venus likely started off with the same amount of water as Earth, but today the hellish world has 100,000 times less water than its sister planet Around 4.5 billion years ago, Earth and Venus were born in the midst of a chaotic star system. Passant Rabie / Gizmodo, Quartz, 8 May 2024 Expand All The flames shot into the sky in Charlotte’s South Park area Thursday morning, a hellish orange inferno blazing with 2,000-degree temperatures. Scott Fowler, Charlotte Observer, 6 May 2024 Rounded up and imprisoned in barbed wire prison camps in some of the most hellish places and most desolate places in the country. Abc News, ABC News, 19 Apr. 2024 In November of last year, Sarah Tabrizi was arrested and taken to Evin Prison, one of the most hellish places on earth. Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 18 Apr. 2024 Today, all that heat has boiled away the oceans and resulted in hellish surface temperatures high enough to melt lead. Shi En Kim, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Feb. 2024 Pap shots of Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner are spliced with drone shots of hellish landfill sites in Accra, Ghana. Daniel Rodgers, Vogue, 12 Apr. 2024 But this hellish road trip also maintains a sense of hopefulness − via the growing relationship between Lee and Jessie – and is pretty exciting even with its multitude of horrors. Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 10 Apr. 2024 Others in the crowd gesture at him to hurry, the hellish sky behind them orange-red. Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 8 Apr. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hellish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1530, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of hellish was circa 1530

Dictionary Entries Near hellish

Cite this Entry

“Hellish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hellish. Accessed 15 May. 2024.

Kids Definition

hellish

adjective
hell·​ish ˈhel-ish How to pronounce hellish (audio)
: of, resembling, or suitable to hell : infernal
hellishly adverb
hellishness noun
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!