"all hell breaks loose" meaning in English

See all hell breaks loose in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: en-au-all hell breaks loose.ogg [Australia] Forms: all hell broke loose [past]
Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|simple past|all hell broke loose|head=all hell breaks loose}} all hell breaks loose (simple past all hell broke loose)
  1. (idiomatic) The situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage. Tags: idiomatic Translations (the situation becomes chaotic): de hel breekt los (Dutch), helvetti pääsee valloilleen (Finnish), l’enfer se déchaîne (French), die Hölle bricht los (German), der Teufel ist los (German), elszabadul a pokol (Hungarian), si scatena l'inferno [literally] (Italian), succede un quarantotto (Italian), rozpętać piekło [perfective] (Polish), o céu veio abaixo (Portuguese), todo se fue al demonio (Spanish), se arma la gorda [Mexico] (Spanish), (hela) helvetet brakar loss (Swedish)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for all hell breaks loose meaning in English (3.7kB)

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "all hell broke loose",
      "tags": [
        "past"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1992 August 19, “Beckel, Barnes and Rollins Discuss the Republican Convention”, in CBS Morning",
          "text": "I think it's kind of fun because, had Hillary Clinton spoken at the Democratic Convention, all hell would have broken loose.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 November 26, Rory Carroll, Lisa O'Carroll, “‘Remember who we are’: riots, race, and the end of the ‘Irish welcome’”, in The Observer, →ISSN",
          "text": "It was a shocking attack, and within hours all hell had broken loose.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage."
      ],
      "id": "en-all_hell_breaks_loose-en-phrase-oWWiBfqP",
      "links": [
        [
          "chaotic",
          "chaotic"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) The situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "de hel breekt los"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "helvetti pääsee valloilleen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "l’enfer se déchaîne"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "die Hölle bricht los"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "der Teufel ist los"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "elszabadul a pokol"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "tags": [
            "literally"
          ],
          "word": "si scatena l'inferno"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "succede un quarantotto"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "tags": [
            "perfective"
          ],
          "word": "rozpętać piekło"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "o céu veio abaixo"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "todo se fue al demonio"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "tags": [
            "Mexico"
          ],
          "word": "se arma la gorda"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
          "word": "(hela) helvetet brakar loss"
        }
      ]
    }
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/En-au-all_hell_breaks_loose.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
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  ],
  "word": "all hell breaks loose"
}
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          "ref": "1992 August 19, “Beckel, Barnes and Rollins Discuss the Republican Convention”, in CBS Morning",
          "text": "I think it's kind of fun because, had Hillary Clinton spoken at the Democratic Convention, all hell would have broken loose.",
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          "text": "It was a shocking attack, and within hours all hell had broken loose.",
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        "(idiomatic) The situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage."
      ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "de hel breekt los"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "helvetti pääsee valloilleen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "l’enfer se déchaîne"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "die Hölle bricht los"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "der Teufel ist los"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "elszabadul a pokol"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "tags": [
        "literally"
      ],
      "word": "si scatena l'inferno"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "succede un quarantotto"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "rozpętać piekło"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "o céu veio abaixo"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "todo se fue al demonio"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "tags": [
        "Mexico"
      ],
      "word": "se arma la gorda"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "the situation becomes chaotic",
      "word": "(hela) helvetet brakar loss"
    }
  ],
  "word": "all hell breaks loose"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.