hell

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Abode of the damned

Nouns

1. hell, Hades, place of torment; Pandemonium, Tophet; Gehenna, Sheol; hellfire, everlasting fire, fire and brimstone or damnation, inferno, perdition; underworld; purgatory, limbo, abyss, void, bottomless pit, infernal, lower, or nether regions, netherworld; hell on earth. Slang, all-get-out, the other place.

2. Tartarus, Hades, Avernus, Erebus, Styx, Stygian creek, pit of Acheron, Cocytus; infernal regions, inferno, realms of Pluto, Jericho; Amenti, Arallu, Naraka, Nastrond, Nifleheim.

3. Pluto, Rhadamanthus; Charon; Satan (see demon).

Adjectives — hellish, infernal, Stygian, Plutonian.

Adverbs — [down] below.

Quotations — Abandon all hope, you who enter! (Dante), Hell is other people ( Jean-Paul Sartre), Hell is oneself (T. S. Eliot), The road to Hell is paved with good intentions (Karl Marx), Hell, madam, is to love no more (Georges Bernanos), Me miserable! which way shall I fly infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell ( John Milton), If there is no Hell, a good many preachers are obtaining money under false pretenses (Billy Sunday).

Antonyms, see heaven.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Place of the dead, especially of the wicked dead; often capital H ]

Syn. underworld, inferno, place of departed spirits, the lower world, the grave, infernal regions, Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, abyss, realm of Pluto, Tophet, Styx, Acheron, Dis, Cocytus, Avernus, Abaddon, Satan's Kingdom, abode of the damned, abode of the dead, everlasting fire, perdition, purgatory, limbo, Erebus, nether world, Pandemonium, Avichi, hell-fire, Malebolge, bottomless pit, perdition, hellfire, lake of fire and brimstone, place of the lost, place of torment, habitation of fallen angels, blue blazes*, Halifax*, Hoboken*, hot place*, you-know-where*, the hereafter*.

Ant. heaven*, earth, paradise.

2. [A condition of torment]

Syn. trial, hellfire, ordeal; see crisis , difficulty 1 , 2 , emergency .

• be hell on*,

Syn. be painful for, be difficult to, be harsh with; see abuse 1 .

• catch or [m1]• get hell*,

Syn. get into trouble, be scolded, receive punishment; see get it 2 .

• for the hell of it*,

Syn. for no reason, for the fun of it, playfully; see lightly 1 .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

Hades, Gehenna, nether world, abyss, fire and brimstone, inferno, underworld, Pandemonium, Abaddon, abode of the damned, limbo, eternal punishment, abode ofthe dead, abode ofSatan, infernal regions, purgatory, pit, perdition, torment, depths. ''Where their worms die not, and the fire is not quenched. —Bible. ''A vast, unbottom d, boundless pit. —Robert Burns. ''A brimstone sea of boiling fire. —Francis Quarles. ''Every man is his own. —Henry Louis Mencken. ''God s penitentiary. — Charles Jaynes.

ANT.: heaven, paradise, bliss

WORD FIND

• halfway to: purgatory, limbo

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) I noun Excruciating punishment: living hell, persecution, torment, torture. Idiom: tortures of the damned. See REWARD. II verb Informal. To behave riotously. Used with around: carouse, frolic, revel, riot, roister. Idioms: blow off steam, cut loose, kick over the traces, kick up one's heels, let go, let loose, make merry, make whoopee, paint the town red, raise Cain (or the devil or hell), whoop it up. See RESTRAINT.