"like a bat out of hell" meaning in English

See like a bat out of hell in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: En-au-like a bat out of hell.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} like a bat out of hell, {{en-PP}} like a bat out of hell
  1. (simile) With crazy or excessive intensity or speed. Synonyms: hell-for-leather Translations (Translations): kuin viimeistä päivää (Finnish), wie Schmidts Katze (German), na złamanie karku (Polish), som ett jehu (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-like_a_bat_out_of_hell-en-prep_phrase-cxaL61pT Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English similes

Download JSON data for like a bat out of hell meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "like a bat out of hell",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "like a bat out of hell",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
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          "source": "w"
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English similes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He came tearing around the corner like a bat out of hell and nearly ran us over.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, The Texas Civil Appeals Reports: Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Civil Appeals of the State of Texas, volume 32, page 594",
          "text": "Appellee testified that \"the train came through like a bat out of hell,\" and while this language is probably highly figurative, it nevertheless might tend to indicate that the train was running at a very high speed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, Jim Steinman (lyrics and music), “Bat Out of Hell”, in Bat Out of Hell, performed by Meat Loaf",
          "text": "Like a bat out of hell\nI'll be gone when the morning comes.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "With crazy or excessive intensity or speed."
      ],
      "id": "en-like_a_bat_out_of_hell-en-prep_phrase-cxaL61pT",
      "links": [
        [
          "crazy",
          "crazy"
        ],
        [
          "excessive",
          "excessive"
        ],
        [
          "intensity",
          "intensity"
        ],
        [
          "speed",
          "speed"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) With crazy or excessive intensity or speed."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hell-for-leather"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "kuin viimeistä päivää"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "wie Schmidts Katze"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "na złamanie karku"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "som ett jehu"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "audio": "En-au-like a bat out of hell.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8d/En-au-like_a_bat_out_of_hell.ogg/En-au-like_a_bat_out_of_hell.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/En-au-like_a_bat_out_of_hell.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "like a bat out of hell"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "like a bat out of hell",
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "like a bat out of hell",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He came tearing around the corner like a bat out of hell and nearly ran us over.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, The Texas Civil Appeals Reports: Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Civil Appeals of the State of Texas, volume 32, page 594",
          "text": "Appellee testified that \"the train came through like a bat out of hell,\" and while this language is probably highly figurative, it nevertheless might tend to indicate that the train was running at a very high speed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, Jim Steinman (lyrics and music), “Bat Out of Hell”, in Bat Out of Hell, performed by Meat Loaf",
          "text": "Like a bat out of hell\nI'll be gone when the morning comes.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "With crazy or excessive intensity or speed."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "crazy",
          "crazy"
        ],
        [
          "excessive",
          "excessive"
        ],
        [
          "intensity",
          "intensity"
        ],
        [
          "speed",
          "speed"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(simile) With crazy or excessive intensity or speed."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hell-for-leather"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-like a bat out of hell.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/8/8d/En-au-like_a_bat_out_of_hell.ogg/En-au-like_a_bat_out_of_hell.ogg.mp3",
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      "tags": [
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "kuin viimeistä päivää"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "wie Schmidts Katze"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "na złamanie karku"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "som ett jehu"
    }
  ],
  "word": "like a bat out of hell"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 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.