HELLISH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hellish mean? 

• HELLISH (adjective)
  The adjective HELLISH has 2 senses:

1. (informal) very unpleasant

2. extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell

  Familiarity information: HELLISH used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HELLISH (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(informal) very unpleasant

Synonyms:

beastly; god-awful; hellish

Context example:

stop that god-awful racket

Similar:

unpleasant (offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell

Synonyms:

demonic; diabolic; diabolical; fiendish; hellish; infernal; satanic; unholy

Context example:

unholy grimaces

Similar:

evil (morally bad or wrong)

 Context examples 

His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiend-like malice.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He swung for a moment, full of thought, and even as he hung there another of the hellish stones sang through his curls, and struck a chip from the face of the cliff.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Venus today is a hellish world.

(NASA Climate Modeling Suggests Venus May Have Been Habitable, NASA)

The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This hellish scenario exists on the permanent daysides of a type of planet found outside our solar system dubbed an "ultrahot Jupiter."

(Water Is Destroyed, Then Reborn in Ultrahot Jupiters, NASA/JPL)

Earth is thought to have gradually coalesced in fiery collisions of smaller planetoids – and those hellish conditions can now explain an enduring scientific mystery.

(Fiery Collisions That Gave Birth to Earth Could Have Evaporated 40% of Our World, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy?

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)