Word.ws English Dictionary

to high heaven

to high heaven prepositional phrase: immensely, forcefully.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Immensely, forcefully.
    • But I wished to high heaven that my head would quit aching.1921 December, anonymous author, “Shell-Shocked—And After”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 128, page 740
    • The rear housing on the back tender truck was now blazing to high heaven.1929, Francis Lynde, Young Blood, page 148

Examples of to high heaven in a sentence

  • He stood in the middle of the road and began to complain to high heaven at the top of his voice.2013 [a. 1929], Evald Tang Kristensen, translated by Stephen Badman, “Broken on the Wheel”, in John Herbert, editor, Odds and Sods: Stories...
  • How can I ever forget one cold night in February while the wind blew to high heaven?2015, Nesarío García, Hoe, Heaven, and Hell: My Boyhood in Rural New Mexico, →ISBN, page 38:

Questions about to high heaven

What does to high heaven mean?
To high heaven means immensely, forcefully.
How do you use to high heaven in a sentence?
He stood in the middle of the road and began to complain to high heaven at the top of his voice.
What part of speech is to high heaven?
To high heaven is a prepositional phrase.

Words near to high heaven in the dictionary

  1. to hell and back
  2. to hell and gone
  3. to hell in a handbasket
  4. to hell in a handcart
  5. to hell with
  6. to high heaven
  7. To Kwa Wan
  8. to let
  9. to little avail
  10. to many
  11. to meward

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to high heaven (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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