Word.ws English Dictionary

come hell or high water

come hell or high water adverb: regardless of the hardships; no matter what difficulties may arise.

Adverb

come hell or high water

  1. (idiomatic, slang, vulgar) Regardless of the hardships; no matter what difficulties may arise.
    • The pioneers were determined to build a community in the wilderness come hell or high water.
    • Her crew knew that deep in her heart beat engines fit and able to push her blunt old nose ahead at a sweet fourteen knots, come Hell or high water.1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1

Synonyms of come hell or high water

Antonyms

Origin of come hell or high water

In reference to the dangers of hell and stormy seas or floods.

Questions about come hell or high water

What does come hell or high water mean?
Come hell or high water means regardless of the hardships; no matter what difficulties may arise.
What part of speech is come hell or high water?
Come hell or high water is an adverb.

Words near come hell or high water in the dictionary

  1. come get some
  2. come good
  3. come hand
  4. come hands
  5. come head
  6. come hell or high water
  7. come here to me
  8. come high
  9. come hither
  10. come home
  11. come home by weeping cross

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come hell or high water (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-come hell or high water.ogg.

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