hell's half acre
1
9.9
- noun
- /hɛlz hæf ˈeɪkər/
- Informal
:
un verdadero desastre
- After the party, the house looked like hell's half acre.
Examples
-
She chased the dog all over hell's half acre before she finally caught it.
-
What a hell's half acre!
-
The missing package could have been delivered anywhere on hell's half acre.
-
This place is a real hell's half acre!
-
After the storm passed, the backyard looked like hell's half-acre, with debris scattered everywhere.
-
The warehouse was a hell's half-acre, filled with boxes and materials that made finding anything a challenge.
-
Trying to navigate the crowded market felt like entering hell's half-acre, with stalls packed in every direction.
Synonyms
715
6.1
Loud, wild trouble that causes disorder
9
6.8
A place or situation that causes great suffering and pain
2
6.8
A very messy place with many things mixed together
2
8.4
A very large, messy situation that is hard to fix
A crowded maze of small houses and narrow streets
A very messy place or situation
Antonyms
How Chaotic
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although the parts 'hell' and 'acre' evoke a bad piece of land, the phrase's specific idiomatic sense (a chaotic, troublesome area or place) is not a predictable composition of 'hell's' + 'half' + 'acre'—the 'half acre' measurement element is misleading. This is a regional, idiomatic expression whose meaning must be learned as a whole, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would likely not infer the correct sense.
Etymology
Hell's half acre may come from old stories about a small patch of land so rough or wild people joked it belonged to hell. Picture a half acre full of rocks, holes and mess, and that image explains why hell's half acre means 'a chaotic, hard-to-manage area'.