Word.ws English Dictionary

until hell freezes over

until hell freezes over prepositional phrase: forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres.
    • He can continue to be hard on himself until hell freezes over, because he's so self-centeredly pessimistic that there's nothing I can ever do to lighten him up.
    • They can be bellyaching to me about their life's problems until hell freezes over, but it doesn't mean that they'll ever get my sympathy.

Synonyms of until hell freezes over

Questions about until hell freezes over

What does until hell freezes over mean?
Until hell freezes over means forever; without success, no matter how long one perseveres.
What part of speech is until hell freezes over?
Until hell freezes over is a prepositional phrase.

Words near until hell freezes over in the dictionary

  1. untightens
  2. untightness
  3. until
  4. until all hours
  5. until further notice
  6. until hell freezes over
  7. until Kingdom come
  8. until next time
  9. until one is blue in the face
  10. until one's dying day
  11. until proven otherwise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: until hell freezes over (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-until hell freezes over.ogg.

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