hell on wheels
1
8.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
un torbellino
- May I also say, sir, that Cdr. Eddington is hell on wheels.
And then on the kicking game, hell on hell on wheels.
- And then on the kicking game, hell on hell on wheels.
Examples
-
After joining the team, he quickly proved himself to be hell on wheels, leading the group with his aggressive style.
-
I'm hell on wheels once you know me.
-
And it was hell on wheels.
-
You would have been hell on wheels.
Fiction book (1998) -
"Today has been hell on wheels."
Fiction book (2001) -
A hotheaded guy would be hell on wheels.
Fiction book (1998) -
He became hell on wheels as a criminal defense attorney.
Fiction book (1992) -
I'm hell on wheels.
-
It's for this reason that we should all be glad that I'm monogamous and scared of drugs, because I'd probably be hell on wheels if I were to turn my attention elsewhere for a thrill.
Blog text (19) -
He is definitely hell on wheels when it comes to racing; he drives like a wild animal.
Synonyms
4
9.5
A child or young person who is noisy and badly behaved
1
9.9
A vehicle that moves very fast in a dangerous way
A person who fights or argues in a very angry way
A fierce, violent person who fights without mercy
Antonyms
How Wild
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'hell' (an intensifier evoking extreme, chaotic quality) with 'on wheels' (suggesting movement/speed), so a learner who knows the parts can partly infer that it describes something intense, fast, or hard to control. However, the specific idiomatic range (energetic, aggressive, reckless, or exciting and difficult to control) and pragmatic nuance are not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so it is only partially transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
Hell on wheels may come from the moving towns that followed railroad workers long ago. Those rolling camps were like hell, full of bars, fights and wild parties, and because they moved with the work on wheels, the phrase now means 'very energetic, wild, or hard to control'.