"hell of a" meaning in All languages combined

See hell of a on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

IPA: /ˈhɛləvə/
Head templates: {{en-adj|-}} hell of a (not comparable)
  1. (colloquial or vulgar) Intensifier; indicates that someone or something is especially good, bad, difficult, etc. Tags: colloquial, not-comparable, vulgar Derived forms: heck of a [euphemistic], hella, helluva [contraction] Related terms: big old Translations (intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)): d’enfer (French), sacré [masculine] (French), חֲתִיכַת (ḥatichát) (Hebrew), nem semmi (Hungarian)

Alternative forms

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "hell of a (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with French translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Hebrew translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Hungarian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "euphemistic"
          ],
          "word": "heck of a"
        },
        {
          "word": "hella"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "contraction"
          ],
          "word": "helluva"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Well done! That's a hell of an achievement!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "She had a hell of a time trying to open the jar. In the end she gave up.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "Where were you? / I got lost in the woods. / Wow! Hell of a place to get lost!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, “One Hell of a Party”, in Pocket Symphony, performed by Air ft. Jarvis Cocker:",
          "text": "Yeah, this was one hell of a party / Nobody ever got to bed / But the morning after's killing me / And I have to rest my head",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Intensifier; indicates that someone or something is especially good, bad, difficult, etc."
      ],
      "id": "en-hell_of_a-en-adj-X4B-VEFh",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial or vulgar) Intensifier; indicates that someone or something is especially good, bad, difficult, etc."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "big old"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "not-comparable",
        "vulgar"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
          "word": "d’enfer"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "sacré"
        },
        {
          "code": "he",
          "lang": "Hebrew",
          "roman": "ḥatichát",
          "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
          "word": "חֲתִיכַת"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
          "word": "nem semmi"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhɛləvə/"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hell of a"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "euphemistic"
      ],
      "word": "heck of a"
    },
    {
      "word": "hella"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "contraction"
      ],
      "word": "helluva"
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "hell of a (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "big old"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English uncomparable adjectives",
        "English vulgarities",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with French translations",
        "Terms with Hebrew translations",
        "Terms with Hungarian translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Well done! That's a hell of an achievement!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "She had a hell of a time trying to open the jar. In the end she gave up.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "Where were you? / I got lost in the woods. / Wow! Hell of a place to get lost!",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, “One Hell of a Party”, in Pocket Symphony, performed by Air ft. Jarvis Cocker:",
          "text": "Yeah, this was one hell of a party / Nobody ever got to bed / But the morning after's killing me / And I have to rest my head",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Intensifier; indicates that someone or something is especially good, bad, difficult, etc."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial or vulgar) Intensifier; indicates that someone or something is especially good, bad, difficult, etc."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial",
        "not-comparable",
        "vulgar"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈhɛləvə/"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
      "word": "d’enfer"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "sacré"
    },
    {
      "code": "he",
      "lang": "Hebrew",
      "roman": "ḥatichát",
      "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
      "word": "חֲתִיכַת"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "intensifier: especially (good, bad, difficult etc.)",
      "word": "nem semmi"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hell of a"
}

Download raw JSONL data for hell of a meaning in All languages combined (2.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). 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.