Word.ws English Dictionary

to heck in a handbasket

to heck in a handbasket is the euphemistic form of to hell in a handbasket.

Meaning of to hell in a handbasket

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To go to a bad state of affairs quickly.
    • I watched as the guy in charge did nothing and the whole place went to hell in a handbasket.

Questions about to heck in a handbasket

What is to heck in a handbasket the euphemistic form of?
To heck in a handbasket is the euphemistic form of to hell in a handbasket.

Words near to heck in a handbasket in the dictionary

  1. to excess
  2. to go
  3. to God
  4. to hand
  5. to have and to hold
  6. to heck in a handbasket
  7. to heel
  8. to hell
  9. to hell and back
  10. to hell and gone
  11. to hell in a handbasket

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to heck in a handbasket (page history and authors); to hell in a handbasket (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-to heck in a handbasket.wav.

Cite this entry: “to heck in a handbasket.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/to_heck_in_a_handbasket. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.