heck
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See also: Heck
English
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /hɛk/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -ɛk
Etymology 1
Late 19th century, originally dialectal northern English, from a euphemistic alteration of hell.[1][2]
Interjection
heck
- (euphemistic) Hell.
- Heck, what did I expect? It's too muddy out to go biking today.
Translations
euphemism of hell
Noun
heck (uncountable)
- (euphemistic) Hell.
- You can go to heck as far as I'm concerned.
- 2024 March 20, Richard Foster, “Vital experience in an open-air classroom”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 57:
- "And the railway industry needs a heck of a lot of people to be up-skilled," notes Darroch.
Usage notes
- Heck usually only replaces hell in idiomatic expressions or as a generic intensifier or vulgarity. It is only rarely, and for intentionally jocular effect, used as a euphemism for the actual concept of hell.
Synonyms
- See under hell.
Derived terms
- as heck
- bleeding heck
- bloody heck
- blooming heck
- for the heck of it
- hecka
- heck board
- heck-care
- heck if I know
- heckin
- heckin'
- hecking
- heck knows
- heck no
- heck of a
- heckuva
- heck yeah
- heck yes
- how the heck
- like heck
- oh my heck
- scare the heck out of
- snowball's chance in heck
- the heck
- to heck in a handbasket
- what the heck
- when heck freezes over
- when the heck
- where the heck
- who the heck
- why the heck
Translations
Etymology 2
Blend of to heck (“destroyed, messed up”) + fuck, possibly supported by feck.
Verb
heck (third-person singular simple present hecks, present participle hecking, simple past and past participle hecked) (informal)
Derived terms
Etymology 3
See hatch (“a half door”).
Alternative forms
Noun
heck (plural hecks)
- The bolt or latch of a door.
- A rack for cattle to feed at.
- (obsolete) A door, especially one partly of latticework.
- A latticework contrivance for catching fish.
- (weaving) An apparatus for separating the threads of warps into sets, as they are wound upon the reel from the bobbins, in a warping machine.
- A bend or winding of a stream.
Derived terms
References
- ^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Heck”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.
- ^ Wright, Joseph (1902) The English Dialect Dictionary, volume 3, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 125
Further reading
- “heck”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “heck”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “heck”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
German
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Verb
heck
Middle English
Noun
heck
- Alternative form of hacche