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hellacious

hellacious

1 8.6
Very impressive or exciting in a strong way
  • adjective
  • /həˈleɪʃəs/
  • Informal
translation icon : impresionante
  • They threw a hellacious party that everyone talked about for weeks.

Examples

  • It's been a hellacious display of courage by both fighters.

  • I have just a hellacious amount of mondo worms.

  • She's getting pretty good at the drums, judging from the hellacious noise she makes at dinner!

    Blog text (4)
  • You're one hellacious piece of manpower.

  • A hellacious tour, dude!

  • It's hellacious.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • A hellacious 5th inning of infield defense put two extra Indians runs on the board, and Jose Valverde blew the lead in the 9th.

    Blog text (2)
  • THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS, TENACIOUS, HELLACIOUS SPRING BREAKISH PARTY OF THE CENTURY STARTS RIGHT HERE.

  • The concert was a hellacious experience that left the audience in awe.

  • Her performance in the play was simply hellacious; everyone was impressed by her talent.

Synonyms

heck of a
vshellacious
  • Informal
77 8.1

Very impressive or very difficult

is a single descriptive word used directly not a phrase
helluva
vshellacious
  • Informal
24 9.9

An informal way to say something is very impressive or large to show strong feeling

is used only as an adjective, not as an adverb
godly
vshellacious
  • Slang
3 8.3

Very good and impressive

focuses more on intense or striking quality rather than plain goodness

Antonyms

683 1.0

Normal and not special or unusual

9 3.9

Not very good or likely to attract attention

How Impressive

hellacious
  • Informal
1 8.6
spectacular
265 3.5
remarkable
588 2.8
impressive
584 3.4
notable
112 3.7

Surface Forms

hellacious positive

Morphology

hellacious = hell (opaque) = hell + acious

The positive slang sense 'extremely impressive' is an extended, ironic use of the word and is not predictable from the component parts.

Etymology

The word hellacious comes from hell and the ending -acious, which gives the sense 'like' or 'full of', so it literally means 'like hell' or 'very intense'. Because of that strong idea, people sometimes use it in a positive way to mean extremely impressive, just like the words hellish or a hell of a show strong feeling.