"until hell freezes over" meaning in All languages combined

See until hell freezes over on Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase [English]

Audio: En-au-until hell freezes over.ogg [Australia]
  1. (idiomatic) forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: until the cows come home Related terms: when Hell freezes over
    Sense id: en-until_hell_freezes_over-en-prep_phrase-xqYRoLjx Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English positive polarity items, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English positive polarity items",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              38,
              61
            ]
          ],
          "text": "He can continue to be hard on himself until hell freezes over, because he's so self-centeredly pessimistic that there's nothing I can ever do to lighten him up.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              58,
              81
            ]
          ],
          "text": "They can be bellyaching to me about their life's problems until hell freezes over, but it doesn't mean that they'll ever get my sympathy.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              36,
              59
            ]
          ],
          "text": "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres."
      ],
      "id": "en-until_hell_freezes_over-en-prep_phrase-xqYRoLjx",
      "links": [
        [
          "forever",
          "forever"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ],
        [
          "persevere",
          "persevere"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "when Hell freezes over"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "until the cows come home"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-until hell freezes over.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c9/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "until hell freezes over"
}
{
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "when Hell freezes over"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English duration adverbs",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English positive polarity items",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              38,
              61
            ]
          ],
          "text": "He can continue to be hard on himself until hell freezes over, because he's so self-centeredly pessimistic that there's nothing I can ever do to lighten him up.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              58,
              81
            ]
          ],
          "text": "They can be bellyaching to me about their life's problems until hell freezes over, but it doesn't mean that they'll ever get my sympathy.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              36,
              59
            ]
          ],
          "text": "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "forever",
          "forever"
        ],
        [
          "success",
          "success"
        ],
        [
          "persevere",
          "persevere"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-until hell freezes over.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c9/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/En-au-until_hell_freezes_over.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "until the cows come home"
    }
  ],
  "word": "until hell freezes over"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.