the devil
the devil adverb: used to add emphasis to a question or statement.
Adverb (1)
the devil (not comparable)
- Used to add emphasis to a question or statement.
- What the devil are you doing here at this time of night?
- VVhat is he an honeſt man? the deuill he is, he is the Parſon of the Towne,
You thinke ther’s no knauerie hid vnder a black gowne,
Find him in a pulpit but twiſe in the yeare,
And Ile find him fortie times in the ale-houſe taſting ſtrong beare.1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I
- Synonyms:
- the dickens
Adverb (2) capitalized: the Devil
the Devil (not comparable)
- Alternative letter-case form of the devil.
- What’s all this!---what’s here to do!---what the Devil are you all about!---Zounds! who do you want here, Mr. Trueman?1771, Amyas Griffith, The Swadler. A New Comedy of Three Acts., Clonmell: […] Edward Collins, page 38
- Who the Devil are you? Where the Devil do you come from / And what the Devil are you doing crusted up like a cloud-cuckoo?1982, The London Magazine, page 3
Proper noun capitalized: the Devil
the Devil
Synonyms of the devil
Forms of the devil
| alternative form | the Devil |
|---|
Words formed from the devil
- the devils
- the devil you say
- the dickens
- what the devils
Questions about the devil
- What does the devil mean?
- The devil means used to add emphasis to a question or statement.
- What part of speech is the devil?
- The devil can be an adverb or a proper noun.
Words near the devil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: the devil (page history and authors); the Devil (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-the devil.ogg.
Cite this entry: “the devil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_devil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.