heckuva job
1
8.8
- noun
- Informal
:
gran trabajo
- You're doing a heckuva job, Barry!
Examples
-
So he's doing a heckuva job solidifying his reelection prospects while giving his party a hearty "fuck you."
Blog text (16) -
Yeah, we won tonight; the kid pitcher did a heckuva job. I think maybe he's a prospect.
Fiction book (2000) -
Clutch performance; in fact, dare I say, a heckuva job.
Blog text (9) -
Now I will agree that W saying "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" was monumentally stupid.
Blog text (6) -
Bush got hammered by the press right after Katrina and so tried to appease them with the "heckuva job, Brownie."
Blog text (5) -
The team delivered a heckuva job on the project, exceeding all expectations.
-
Everyone agreed that she did a heckuva job organizing the charity event.
-
Winning the award was a testament to the heckuva job he did last year.
Synonyms
284
1.0
To praise someone for doing a task well
77
8.1
Very impressive or very difficult
24
9.9
An informal way to say something is very impressive or large to show strong feeling
23
1.9
Very good work that impresses people
15
4.2
A piece of work that is done very well
2
2.8
Very impressive and exciting
Antonyms
How Impressive
Surface Forms
Morphology
heckuva + job
Heckuva job is a colloquial contraction of an intensifying phrase (like 'a heck of a job' or 'hell of a job') where 'heckuva' functions as an informal intensifier modifying 'job'. A learner who knows 'heck' as an expletive and 'job' as a task could probably infer the general sense (an impressive or notable job), but the contraction and pragmatic/colloquial use are not fully compositional or predictable, so prior exposure or cultural knowledge helps. Therefore it is only partially transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
The phrase heckuva job comes from an older saying: people used the strong word hell to show surprise but softened it to heck, and when said quickly it sounded like heckuva. That quick, softened sound became a friendly way to say 'an excellent or impressive job'.