Word.ws English Dictionary

all hell breaks loose

all hell breaks loose phrase: the situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage.

Phrase

all hell breaks loose

  1. (idiomatic) The situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage.
    • Came not all hell broke loose?1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...
    • I think it's kind of fun because, had Hillary Clinton spoken at the Democratic Convention, all hell would have broken loose.1992 August 19, “Beckel, Barnes and Rollins Discuss the Republican Convention”, in CBS Morning

Questions about all hell breaks loose

What does all hell breaks loose mean?
All hell breaks loose means the situation becomes chaotic or characterized by conflict or rage.
What part of speech is all hell breaks loose?
All hell breaks loose is a phrase.

Words near all hell breaks loose in the dictionary

  1. all hands to the pump
  2. all hat and no cattle
  3. all hat and no cowboy
  4. all hat, no ranch
  5. all heart
  6. all hell breaks loose
  7. all hell broke loose
  8. all holiday
  9. All Holiness
  10. All Holinesses
  11. all hollow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all hell breaks loose (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-all hell breaks loose.ogg.

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