"to high heaven" meaning in English

See to high heaven in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} to high heaven, {{en-PP}} to high heaven
  1. (idiomatic) Immensely, forcefully. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-to_high_heaven-en-prep_phrase-DTFY7K2N Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for to high heaven meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "to high heaven",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "to high heaven",
      "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",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921 December, anonymous author, “Shell-Shocked—And After”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 128, page 740",
          "text": "But I wished to high heaven that my head would quit aching.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1929, Francis Lynde, Young Blood, page 148",
          "text": "The rear housing on the back tender truck was now blazing to high heaven.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1955 October 28, Helge E. Nygren, “Statement of Helge E. Nygren […]”, in Price-Support Program: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, First Session […], volume 3, published 1956, page 1182",
          "text": "If someone would have the nerve to ask for, say, 10 percent of that amount to be used for the training of this same young man to make a good farmer and citizen out of him, then they would cry to high heaven about the out-of-reason waste of money.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 [a. 1929], Evald Tang Kristensen, translated by Stephen Badman, “Broken on the Wheel”, in John Herbert, editor, Odds and Sods: Stories Taken from the Collection of Evald Tang Kristensen, page 36",
          "text": "He stood in the middle of the road and began to complain to high heaven at the top of his voice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Nesarío García, Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico, page 38",
          "text": "How can I ever forget one cold night in February while the wind blew to high heaven?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Immensely, forcefully."
      ],
      "id": "en-to_high_heaven-en-prep_phrase-DTFY7K2N",
      "links": [
        [
          "Immensely",
          "immensely"
        ],
        [
          "forcefully",
          "forcefully"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Immensely, forcefully."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "to high heaven"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "to high heaven",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "to high heaven",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1921 December, anonymous author, “Shell-Shocked—And After”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 128, page 740",
          "text": "But I wished to high heaven that my head would quit aching.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1929, Francis Lynde, Young Blood, page 148",
          "text": "The rear housing on the back tender truck was now blazing to high heaven.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1955 October 28, Helge E. Nygren, “Statement of Helge E. Nygren […]”, in Price-Support Program: Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, United States Senate, Eighty-Fourth Congress, First Session […], volume 3, published 1956, page 1182",
          "text": "If someone would have the nerve to ask for, say, 10 percent of that amount to be used for the training of this same young man to make a good farmer and citizen out of him, then they would cry to high heaven about the out-of-reason waste of money.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 [a. 1929], Evald Tang Kristensen, translated by Stephen Badman, “Broken on the Wheel”, in John Herbert, editor, Odds and Sods: Stories Taken from the Collection of Evald Tang Kristensen, page 36",
          "text": "He stood in the middle of the road and began to complain to high heaven at the top of his voice.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Nesarío García, Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico, page 38",
          "text": "How can I ever forget one cold night in February while the wind blew to high heaven?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Immensely, forcefully."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Immensely",
          "immensely"
        ],
        [
          "forcefully",
          "forcefully"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Immensely, forcefully."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "to high heaven"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.