"fresh hell" meaning in English

See fresh hell in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: fresh hells [plural]
Etymology: Quote Investigator offers a convincing analysis of this phrase's origins: it is apparent that Dorothy Parker's use of it had earlier influences or antecedents, but her use of it led others to further popularize it. Etymology templates: {{quote-web|en|authorlink=|date=2017-10-01|first=|first2=|first3=|last=|last2=|last3=|title=Quote Origin: What Fresh Hell Can This Be?|url=https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/01/fresh/|work=w:Quote Investigator}} 2017 October 1, “Quote Origin: What Fresh Hell Can This Be?”, in Quote Investigator: Head templates: {{en-noun}} fresh hell (plural fresh hells)
  1. (colloquial) A new undesirable situation. Tags: colloquial
    Sense id: en-fresh_hell-en-noun-WQo3VtUI Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 57 43 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 68 32 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 82 18
  2. (colloquial) Used in what-questions for emphasis. Tags: colloquial
    Sense id: en-fresh_hell-en-noun-PIpVNxxa

Inflected forms

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      "args": {
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        "authorlink": "",
        "date": "2017-10-01",
        "first": "",
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        "last2": "",
        "last3": "",
        "title": "Quote Origin: What Fresh Hell Can This Be?",
        "url": "https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/01/fresh/",
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      "expansion": "2017 October 1, “Quote Origin: What Fresh Hell Can This Be?”, in Quote Investigator:",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "57 43",
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          "parents": [],
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          "text": "What fresh hell is this?",
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          "ref": "2000, Jonathan Edwards, Addie Stephen, Coming Clean, page 89:",
          "text": "So what further fresh hells await the woman fool enough to think that this guy would be different?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A new undesirable situation."
      ],
      "id": "en-fresh_hell-en-noun-WQo3VtUI",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) A new undesirable situation."
      ],
      "tags": [
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          "text": "What in the fresh hell is going on?",
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        "Used in what-questions for emphasis."
      ],
      "id": "en-fresh_hell-en-noun-PIpVNxxa",
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        "(colloquial) Used in what-questions for emphasis."
      ],
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  "word": "fresh hell"
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    "English nouns",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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        "English terms with quotations",
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          "text": "What fresh hell is this?",
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        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A new undesirable situation."
      ],
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        "(colloquial) A new undesirable situation."
      ],
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          "text": "What in the fresh hell is going on?",
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        "Used in what-questions for emphasis."
      ],
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        "(colloquial) Used in what-questions for emphasis."
      ],
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  "word": "fresh hell"
}

Download raw JSONL data for fresh hell meaning in English (2.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-06 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.