snowball in hell
- idiom
- Informal
:
como una bola de nieve en el infierno
- Mrs. Harrison's case has about as much chance as a snowball in hell.
Examples
-
With the way things are going, her chances of winning the lottery are about as likely as a snowball in hell.
-
If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell.
Academic text (2001) -
Hear about the snowball in hell?
-
Doubtful she has a chance of a snowball in hell getting anything.
Blog text (27) -
When they're making snowballs in hell, that's when.
-
He'll get that promotion when pigs fly, or, as they say, when there's a snowball in hell.
-
The company's plan to recover their losses seems as feasible as a snowball in hell.
Synonyms
4
7.0
How unlikely something is to happen or be true
3
9.2
A rare success that happens when everything goes right
2
8.1
A way to say something is very unlikely to happen
1
9.8
A phrase people say to show something is very unlikely to happen
An event that is very unlikely to happen
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase pairs 'snowball' with 'hell', creating a stark literal contradiction (a snowball would not survive in a hot hell), so a learner who knows the words can plausibly infer the sense of extreme improbability. However, the meaning relies on a conventionalized ironic metaphor and cultural knowledge about 'hell', so it is not strictly compositional or fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Snowball in hell comes from a simple picture: imagine a snowball put into hell, a place so hot the snow would melt immediately. That's why the phrase means 'very unlikely' or 'impossible'.