Word.ws English Dictionary

hell on earth

hell on earth noun: a very unpleasant situation; torment, particularly when widespread.

Noun

hell on earth (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) A very unpleasant situation; torment, particularly when widespread.
    • Pope Francis (2015), Laudato si', Paragraph 148: “if the limitations of the environment are compensated for in the interior of each person who feels held within a network of solidarity and belonging, ... any place can turn from being a hell on earth into the setting for a dignified life.”

Questions about hell on earth

What does hell on earth mean?
Hell on earth means a very unpleasant situation; torment, particularly when widespread.
What part of speech is hell on earth?
Hell on earth is a noun.

Words near hell on earth in the dictionary

  1. hell money
  2. hell night
  3. hell nights
  4. hell no
  5. hell of a
  6. hell on earth
  7. hell on wheels
  8. hell or high water
  9. hell pig
  10. hell pigs
  11. hell realm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hell on earth (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-hell on earth.ogg.

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