Word.ws English Dictionary

given someone hell

given someone hell is the past participle of give someone hell.

Meaning of give someone hell

Verb

give someone hell (third-person singular simple present gives someone hell, present participle giving someone hell, simple past gave someone hell, past participle given someone hell)

  1. (idiomatic) To castigate someone; to dress them down.
    • Near-synonym: raise hell
    Synonyms:
    raise hell
  2. To torment; To make miserable.
    • Yes, she desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell . She gave him an unimaginable hell.1915, Madox Ford, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion, page 274
  3. To put up a fight against; to battle strongly and effectively.
    • A nickname of U.S. President Harry Truman was "Give-'em-Hell Harry" because he could really give them hell when he wanted to.

Questions about given someone hell

What is given someone hell the past participle of?
Given someone hell is the past participle of give someone hell.

Words near given someone hell in the dictionary

  1. given someone goss
  2. given someone gray hair
  3. given someone grey hair
  4. given someone grief
  5. given someone Hail Columbia
  6. given someone hell
  7. given someone his gruel
  8. given someone his hat
  9. given someone Jesse
  10. given someone Jessie
  11. given someone line

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: given someone hell (page history and authors); give someone hell (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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