"hell's bells" meaning in English

See hell's bells in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

IPA: /ˌhɛlz ˈbɛlz/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hell's bells.wav
Etymology: From hell + -’s + bells, possibly an elaboration of hell (used to express anger, discontent, or unhappiness) with bells chosen to rhyme with hell’s. The noun sense (Datura stramonium) may allude to the often spiny seed capsules of the poisonous plant which somewhat resemble bells when they mature and split open; compare devil's cucumber, devil's snare, devil's trumpet, and devil's weed which are other common names for the plant. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|hell|-'s|bells|alt2=-’s}} hell + -’s + bells, {{taxfmt|Datura stramonium|species}} Datura stramonium, {{vern|devil's snare}} devil's snare, {{vern|devil's weed}} devil's weed Head templates: {{en-interj|head=hell's bells}} hell's bells
  1. (mildly vulgar) An expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise. Tags: mildly, vulgar Synonyms: dammit, hell's teeth, wow Translations (expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise): porca misèria (Catalan), puta misèria (Catalan), quina misèria (Catalan), porca miseria (Italian), porca puttana (Italian), porca troia (Italian)
    Sense id: en-hell's_bells-en-intj-4aVnyr0h

Noun

IPA: /ˌhɛlz ˈbɛlz/ [General-American, Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hell's bells.wav
Etymology: From hell + -’s + bells, possibly an elaboration of hell (used to express anger, discontent, or unhappiness) with bells chosen to rhyme with hell’s. The noun sense (Datura stramonium) may allude to the often spiny seed capsules of the poisonous plant which somewhat resemble bells when they mature and split open; compare devil's cucumber, devil's snare, devil's trumpet, and devil's weed which are other common names for the plant. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|hell|-'s|bells|alt2=-’s}} hell + -’s + bells, {{taxfmt|Datura stramonium|species}} Datura stramonium, {{vern|devil's snare}} devil's snare, {{vern|devil's weed}} devil's weed Head templates: {{en-noun|p|head=hell's bells}} hell's bells pl (plural only)
  1. Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium). Tags: plural, plural-only Categories (lifeform): Daturas
    Sense id: en-hell's_bells-en-noun-OXybmX9U Disambiguation of Daturas: 18 82 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum, English reduplications, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Catalan translations, Terms with Italian translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 60 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 26 74 Disambiguation of English reduplications: 27 73 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 20 80 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 37 63 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 29 71 Disambiguation of Terms with Catalan translations: 26 74 Disambiguation of Terms with Italian translations: 21 79
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  "etymology_text": "From hell + -’s + bells, possibly an elaboration of hell (used to express anger, discontent, or unhappiness) with bells chosen to rhyme with hell’s.\nThe noun sense (Datura stramonium) may allude to the often spiny seed capsules of the poisonous plant which somewhat resemble bells when they mature and split open; compare devil's cucumber, devil's snare, devil's trumpet, and devil's weed which are other common names for the plant.",
  "head_templates": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "(expression of frustration):"
        },
        {
          "text": "(expression of surprise):"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXIX, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC, section V, page 352:",
          "text": "What's the matter with his talking so polite? Hell's bells, Harry, no harm in being polite. There's some regular he-men that are just as polite as women, prett' near.",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "ref": "1932, Edgar Wallace, Merian C[aldwell] Cooper, novelization by Delos W[heeler] Lovelace, chapter 1, in King Kong, trade softcover edition, Nevada City, Calif.: Underwood Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 6:",
          "text": "\"You've never had a woman in any of your other pictures. Why do you want one for this?\" / \"Hell's Bells! You don't think I'm consulting my own preference, I hope.\"",
          "type": "quote"
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        {
          "ref": "2007, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (motion picture), spoken by Wendell (Garret Dillahunt):",
          "text": "Hell's bells, they even shot the dog.",
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          "frustration",
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          "outrage",
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        ],
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          "surprise",
          "surprise#Noun"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(mildly vulgar) An expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dammit"
        },
        {
          "word": "hell's teeth"
        },
        {
          "word": "wow"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "mildly",
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        {
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "porca misèria"
        },
        {
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "puta misèria"
        },
        {
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "quina misèria"
        },
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          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "porca miseria"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "porca puttana"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
          "word": "porca troia"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "tags": [
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hell's bells.wav",
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  ],
  "word": "hell's bells"
}

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        "Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium)."
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          "Datura stramonium#Translingual"
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  "word": "hell's bells"
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  "etymology_text": "From hell + -’s + bells, possibly an elaboration of hell (used to express anger, discontent, or unhappiness) with bells chosen to rhyme with hell’s.\nThe noun sense (Datura stramonium) may allude to the often spiny seed capsules of the poisonous plant which somewhat resemble bells when they mature and split open; compare devil's cucumber, devil's snare, devil's trumpet, and devil's weed which are other common names for the plant.",
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        {
          "text": "(expression of frustration):"
        },
        {
          "text": "(expression of surprise):"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1920, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXIX, in Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC, section V, page 352:",
          "text": "What's the matter with his talking so polite? Hell's bells, Harry, no harm in being polite. There's some regular he-men that are just as polite as women, prett' near.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1932, Edgar Wallace, Merian C[aldwell] Cooper, novelization by Delos W[heeler] Lovelace, chapter 1, in King Kong, trade softcover edition, Nevada City, Calif.: Underwood Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 6:",
          "text": "\"You've never had a woman in any of your other pictures. Why do you want one for this?\" / \"Hell's Bells! You don't think I'm consulting my own preference, I hope.\"",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2007, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (motion picture), spoken by Wendell (Garret Dillahunt):",
          "text": "Hell's bells, they even shot the dog.",
          "type": "quote"
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        "An expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise."
      ],
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          "frustration#English"
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        ],
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          "surprise#Noun"
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        "(mildly vulgar) An expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise."
      ],
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          "word": "dammit"
        },
        {
          "word": "hell's teeth"
        },
        {
          "word": "wow"
        }
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      "tags": [
        "mildly",
        "vulgar"
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      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hell's bells.wav",
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "porca misèria"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "puta misèria"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "quina misèria"
    },
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      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "porca miseria"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "porca puttana"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "expression of frustration, outrage, or surprise",
      "word": "porca troia"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hell's bells"
}

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  "etymology_text": "From hell + -’s + bells, possibly an elaboration of hell (used to express anger, discontent, or unhappiness) with bells chosen to rhyme with hell’s.\nThe noun sense (Datura stramonium) may allude to the often spiny seed capsules of the poisonous plant which somewhat resemble bells when they mature and split open; compare devil's cucumber, devil's snare, devil's trumpet, and devil's weed which are other common names for the plant.",
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      "glosses": [
        "Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium)."
      ],
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    }
  ],
  "word": "hell's bells"
}

Download raw JSONL data for hell's bells meaning in English (6.5kB)

{
  "called_from": "page/2517",
  "msg": "UNIMPLEMENTED parse_translation_template: taxfmt {1: 'Datura stramonium', 2: 'species'}",
  "path": [
    "hell's bells",
    "Template:trans-see",
    "ARGVAL-1",
    "Template:taxfmt",
    "TEMPLATE_FN"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "hell's bells",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.