infernal
1
8.3
- adjective
- /ɪnˈfɜrnəl/
- Literature
:
infernal
- Residents fled their homes as the infernal heat of the wildfire approached their neighborhood.
- infernal heat
Examples
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During the summer, we often complain about the infernal temperatures that make us sweat incessantly.
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The newer structures, such as theaters, shops, and restaurants built in the 1930s, utilizing the new technology of poured concrete, managed to survive the infernal bombing.
Academic text (2015) -
I believe I shall go naked as Adam in this... infernal heat.
-
"Come in out of the eternal bugs and the infernal heat.
Fiction book (1995) -
Frost smiles, his eyes burning with an infernal glow.
Fiction book (1998) -
They may be out there... ...dying of thirst on... ...on that infernal rock and... ...you and I are sitting here drinking cold bloody beer.
-
Pickup trucks full of charred bodies and looters descending upon the infernal scene complete the tropical vision of hell.
Blog text (31) -
The other main inspiration was the author's observation that writers haven't been doing much with our recently acquired knowledge about what Venus is really like, and it's a place of such infernal extremes that there's a lot of story potential there.
Fiction book (1999) -
The infernal fire raged through the dry forest, consuming everything in its path.
Synonyms
3
9.0
Very bad or difficult and hard to deal with
Antonyms
Compounds
How Hot
Surface Forms
Morphology
infernal = infern + al
This sense is the same inherited adjective as in sense 1, so the familiar suffix -al does not make the hellfire meaning transparently recoverable from a modern English base word.
Etymology
Infernal is related to Latin infernus and the familiar word inferno, both tied to the 'underworld' and the image of burning 'hell'. That's why infernal is often used for extreme, blazing fires or heat that look like 'hellfire'.