hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
UK/hɛl hæθ nəʊ ˈfjʊəɹi laɪk ə ˈwʊmən skɔːnd//hɛl hæθ noʊ ˈfjʊɹi laɪk ə ˈwʊmən skɔɹnd/
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned proverb: a woman who has been romantically rejected, betrayed, or otherwise deeply wronged will react with great anger or vindictiveness.
Proverb
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
- A woman who has been romantically rejected, betrayed, or otherwise deeply wronged will react with great anger or vindictiveness.
- Rather than presenting Medea as the epitome of the "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...," this Medea shows her not so much as a woman bent upon revenge, but as someone who has been betrayed and must for her own sense of preservation must right the wrongs done to her.1988 February 7, Michael Bronski, “"Medea," My Dear”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 29, page 11
Forms of hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
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Origin of hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
First written as "Heav'n has no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd." in the 1697 play The Mourning Bride (Act III Scene 2) by William Congreve. The modern form with 'hath' instead of 'has' is not Congreve's wording; the phrase is often falsely attributed to Shakespeare or the King James Bible.
Questions about hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
- What does hell hath no fury like a woman scorned mean?
- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned means a woman who has been romantically rejected, betrayed, or otherwise deeply wronged will react with great anger or vindictiveness.
- What part of speech is hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?
- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is a proverb.
- How do you pronounce hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?
- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is pronounced /hɛl hæθ nəʊ ˈfjʊəɹi laɪk ə ˈwʊmən skɔːnd/ (UK).
Words near hell hath no fury like a woman scorned in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (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-us-hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.oga.
Cite this entry: “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hell_hath_no_fury_like_a_woman_scorned. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.