Word.ws English Dictionary

to hell and back

to hell and back adverb: greatly, intensely.

Adverb

to hell and back (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) Greatly, intensely.
    • I love you to hell and back.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Through an extremely difficult or distressing situation.
    • She's been to hell and back.

Questions about to hell and back

What does to hell and back mean?
To hell and back means greatly, intensely.
What part of speech is to hell and back?
To hell and back can be an adverb or a prepositional phrase.

Words near to hell and back in the dictionary

  1. to hand
  2. to have and to hold
  3. to heck in a handbasket
  4. to heel
  5. to hell
  6. to hell and back
  7. to hell and gone
  8. to hell in a handbasket
  9. to hell in a handcart
  10. to hell with
  11. to high heaven

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to hell and back (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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