See give someone hell on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "gives someone hell",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "giving someone hell",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "gave someone hell",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "given someone hell",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "give<,,gave,given> someone hell"
},
"expansion": "give someone hell (third-person singular simple present gives someone hell, present participle giving someone hell, simple past gave someone hell, past participle given someone hell)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, Amrita Sharma, What Did I Ever See in Him?, page 154:",
"text": "I gave it off to her and then I stormed right over to her husband, my colleague, and gave him hell as well .",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Suzanne Berube Rorhus, Elizabeth Hosang, Jack Bates, Moon Shot: Murder and Mayhem on the Edge of Space:",
"text": "He stopped calling me Space Barbie after Mike gave him hell last week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2016, Evelyn Piper, The Nanny:",
"text": "When the hospital called and told him Roberta was missing, Dr. Meducca gave them hell.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019, Don Neal, Warhead:",
"text": "I gave him hell about his sloppy uniform ; but don't worry, I'll get him shaped up pretty damn quick .",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To castigate; to dress down."
],
"id": "en-give_someone_hell-en-verb-SpKD1Pki",
"links": [
[
"castigate",
"castigate"
],
[
"dress down",
"dress down"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To castigate; to dress down."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1915, Madox Ford, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, page 274:",
"text": "Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell . She gave him an unimaginable ''hell.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1992, Jo Sinclair, Anna Teller, page 345:",
"text": "She's been giving me hell all week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010, Manfred Gans, Life Gave Me a Chance, page 273:",
"text": "In the thirties, my cousin, Charley Gans, my brother Gershon and I \"gave him hell\" when he taught that garbage in our classes .",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Jillian Frost, Players Break Rules:",
"text": "These guys have been giving me hell all morning.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To torment; To make miserable."
],
"id": "en-give_someone_hell-en-verb-~T-GKooK",
"links": [
[
"torment",
"torment"
],
[
"miserable",
"miserable"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "19 13 68",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "20 15 66",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "21 16 64",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1917, “The Desperate Fighting of the Canadians at Lens”, in The New York Times Current History, page 45:",
"text": "Heine—the Canadians call their enemy Heine and not Fritz—\"was at least three times as strong as us, and we gave him hell. It was hand-to-hand fighting —rifles, bombs, bayonets, butt ends —any old way of killing a man—\"and we killed a lot.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1956 January 30, Harry S. Truman, “The Truman Memoirs: Fooling the '48 Forecasters”, in LIFE, volume 40, number 5, page 76:",
"text": "I had warned my staff and the reporters that I was going out to win the election. \"I'm going to fight hard,\" I told Senator Barkley. \"I'm going to give them hell.\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, John Stevens, Caroline Stevens, Unknown Warriors:",
"text": "Our gunners were temporarily knocked out by gas but soon recovered and gave them hell, which caught their first infantry rush, but they came on and advanced a mile and then their barrage slacked off a bit so as not to catch their own infantry.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To put up a fight against; to battle strongly and effectively."
],
"id": "en-give_someone_hell-en-verb-xiRl3DCp",
"links": [
[
"put up a fight",
"put up a fight"
],
[
"battle",
"battle"
],
[
"strongly",
"strongly"
],
[
"effectively",
"effectively"
]
]
}
],
"word": "give someone hell"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "gives someone hell",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "giving someone hell",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "gave someone hell",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "given someone hell",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "give<,,gave,given> someone hell"
},
"expansion": "give someone hell (third-person singular simple present gives someone hell, present participle giving someone hell, simple past gave someone hell, past participle given someone hell)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2011, Amrita Sharma, What Did I Ever See in Him?, page 154:",
"text": "I gave it off to her and then I stormed right over to her husband, my colleague, and gave him hell as well .",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013, Suzanne Berube Rorhus, Elizabeth Hosang, Jack Bates, Moon Shot: Murder and Mayhem on the Edge of Space:",
"text": "He stopped calling me Space Barbie after Mike gave him hell last week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2016, Evelyn Piper, The Nanny:",
"text": "When the hospital called and told him Roberta was missing, Dr. Meducca gave them hell.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2019, Don Neal, Warhead:",
"text": "I gave him hell about his sloppy uniform ; but don't worry, I'll get him shaped up pretty damn quick .",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To castigate; to dress down."
],
"links": [
[
"castigate",
"castigate"
],
[
"dress down",
"dress down"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To castigate; to dress down."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1915, Madox Ford, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, page 274:",
"text": "Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell . She gave him an unimaginable ''hell.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1992, Jo Sinclair, Anna Teller, page 345:",
"text": "She's been giving me hell all week.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2010, Manfred Gans, Life Gave Me a Chance, page 273:",
"text": "In the thirties, my cousin, Charley Gans, my brother Gershon and I \"gave him hell\" when he taught that garbage in our classes .",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2018, Jillian Frost, Players Break Rules:",
"text": "These guys have been giving me hell all morning.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To torment; To make miserable."
],
"links": [
[
"torment",
"torment"
],
[
"miserable",
"miserable"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1917, “The Desperate Fighting of the Canadians at Lens”, in The New York Times Current History, page 45:",
"text": "Heine—the Canadians call their enemy Heine and not Fritz—\"was at least three times as strong as us, and we gave him hell. It was hand-to-hand fighting —rifles, bombs, bayonets, butt ends —any old way of killing a man—\"and we killed a lot.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1956 January 30, Harry S. Truman, “The Truman Memoirs: Fooling the '48 Forecasters”, in LIFE, volume 40, number 5, page 76:",
"text": "I had warned my staff and the reporters that I was going out to win the election. \"I'm going to fight hard,\" I told Senator Barkley. \"I'm going to give them hell.\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2014, John Stevens, Caroline Stevens, Unknown Warriors:",
"text": "Our gunners were temporarily knocked out by gas but soon recovered and gave them hell, which caught their first infantry rush, but they came on and advanced a mile and then their barrage slacked off a bit so as not to catch their own infantry.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To put up a fight against; to battle strongly and effectively."
],
"links": [
[
"put up a fight",
"put up a fight"
],
[
"battle",
"battle"
],
[
"strongly",
"strongly"
],
[
"effectively",
"effectively"
]
]
}
],
"word": "give someone hell"
}
Download raw JSONL data for give someone hell meaning in All languages combined (4.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-31 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (bcd5c38 and 9dbd323). 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.