Word.ws English Dictionary

what the Devil

what the Devil interjection: used to add emphasis to “what” when beginning a question.

Interjection

what the Devil?

  1. (idiomatic, mildly, vulgar) Used to add emphasis to “what” when beginning a question.
    • What the Devil have you done to the horse?
    • What the devyll hast thou on thy fyste? An owle?c. 1515–1516, John Skelton, Magnyfycence; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 166, line 922
    Synonyms:
    what the dickens, what on earth, what in God's name

Synonyms of what the Devil

  • what the dickens
  • what on earth
  • what in God's name

Origin of what the Devil

Inherited from Middle English what þe devel, what devel.

Questions about what the Devil

What does what the Devil mean?
What the Devil means used to add emphasis to “what” when beginning a question.
What part of speech is what the Devil?
What the Devil is an interjection.

Words near what the Devil in the dictionary

  1. what the actual fuck
  2. what the butler saw
  3. what the crap
  4. what the cuss
  5. what the deuce
  6. what the Devil
  7. what the doctor ordered
  8. what the ef
  9. what the eff
  10. what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over
  11. what the fish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: what 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-what the Devil.ogg.

Cite this entry: “what the Devil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/what_the_devil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.