hell on earth
18
6.8
- idiom
- Informal
- Living in a war zone can be described as hell on earth for many families who have lost everything.
- living in hell on earth
- life can be hell on earth
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Watch on YouTubeIf you want a hell on earth, go look at the children in Gaza.
- If you want a hell on earth, go look at the children in Gaza.
- Second of all, festivals are my hell on earth.
- You know, I started the detox and it was like hell on earth.
- And then you go to a Palestinian town and it looks like hell on earth.
- It's either, you know, it's either a healing space or it's, or it's hell on earth, right?
- And then when we went to Montserrat for Ghost and the Machine, our fourth album, it was hell on earth.
- And yeah, I can honestly say as somebody who has fought in three wars, I've been through all kinds of hell on earth.
- Another is what I called hell on earth.
Examples
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When the floodwaters rose, the aftermath was truly hell on earth for the residents of the town.
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For those caught in the wildfire, each moment felt like hell on earth as they struggled to escape.
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There is a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth: Hope.
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This is hell on earth.
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The fact is that my marriage has been hell on earth.
Fiction book (2000) -
War is hell on earth, just ask anyone who was in one.
Blog text (11) -
This is pure hell on earth.
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Who you love can either make your life heaven on earth or hell on earth.
Blog text (18) -
As civilized people, we MUST come together against them or our future will be hell on earth.
Blog text (5) -
Derek is bitter about the tourist invasion; it's hell on earth, he says, from July through September.
Fiction book (1993)
Synonyms
630
3.7
A very painful or difficult experience
44
8.8
A very bad situation that makes you feel unhappy
41
7.9
A very dirty, unpleasant, and dangerous place
26
9.0
A temporary state of painful waiting before things get better
5
8.2
A situation of great danger and destruction, like war or a big fire
Antonyms
How Miserable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly inferable by combining 'hell' (a place of intense suffering) with 'on Earth' (located in the world), so a learner who knows the constituents can readily understand it as describing a situation or place of extreme misery. This metaphorical mapping is transparent and common across languages, following a straightforward compositional pattern rather than an unpredictable idiom.
Etymology
Hell on earth gives a strong picture: something from hell is happening on earth, so the place feels full of pain and chaos. That's why it means 'a place of intense suffering'.