Word.ws English Dictionary

hellsome

hellsome adjective: marked by hell or hellishness.

Adjective

hellsome (comparative more hellsome, superlative most hellsome)

  1. Marked by hell or hellishness
    • At last he said, " As I'm the darned idiot that's going to sottle on these two hellsome ranches to please you, and as you're the gaudy spark wot's clarin' west to hide your sorrer in the busy hants of men, I guess the actual cause of your pal's death ain't no funeral o' mine.1903, William Reginald Hodder, The Doubling of Joseph Brereton
    • Ab'nisha, the leader of the hellsome pack, knew this bindi.2014, Armani Mondragón, Evolving

Adverb

hellsome (comparative more hellsome, superlative most hellsome)

  1. (informal, nonstandard) In a hellsome manner; hellishly
    • Like an awful alligator / Breathing fire and screeching hell-some, / With a pack of hounds.2015, Charles Godfrey Leland, Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land

Forms of hellsome

Adjective
comparativemore hellsome
superlativemost hellsome
alternative formhell-some
Adverb
comparativemore hellsome
superlativemost hellsome

Origin of hellsome

From hell + -some.

Questions about hellsome

What does hellsome mean?
Hellsome means marked by hell or hellishness.
What part of speech is hellsome?
Hellsome can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near hellsome in the dictionary

  1. hellscape
  2. hellscapes
  3. Hellschen-Heringsand-Unterschaar
  4. hellsite
  5. hellsites
  6. hellsome
  7. hellspawn
  8. hellspawns
  9. hellstew
  10. hellstews
  11. hellstorm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hellsome (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “hellsome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hellsome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.