How to Use hellish in a Sentence

hellish

adjective
  • The battlefield was a hellish scene of death and destruction.
  • We've been having hellish weather lately.
  • The red glow of the restaurant’s neon sign gives the tableau a hellish cast.
    Helen Rosner, The New Yorker, 19 May 2021
  • On Monday, as a hellish fire tore through the center of...
    Eric Sylvers, WSJ, 15 Apr. 2019
  • The tone of the music is dark and hellish mixed with silly and prankish.
    Alphonse Pierre, Pitchfork, 22 Mar. 2024
  • High school has always been hellish, at least for some of us.
    Carol Mangis, PCMAG, 3 June 2022
  • The Earth was a hellish place that had only just acquired a firm crust.
    Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 27 Sep. 2017
  • Andiria has learned a lot about the hellish world of addiction in her short 10 years.
    Laura Ungar, The Courier-Journal, 14 Dec. 2017
  • The flames rose and were reflected in the clouds, turning the sky a hellish scarlet.
    James Verini, New York Times, 19 May 2022
  • Elsewhere in the hellish scene were the bodies of fourth graders whose parents were friends of his.
    Reuters, NBC News, 26 May 2022
  • The idea of attempting to draw suitors in this heat is hellish.
    Raven Smith, Vogue, 9 Aug. 2023
  • Being a child is hellish, but the examples of the adults all around her seem even worse.
    Mark Olsen Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • Our key is to study maps hard and hit a lot of hellish country that is close to trailheads and jeep roads.
    Jace Bauserman, Outdoor Life, 18 Dec. 2019
  • This was one long, hellish year with some highs, yes, but also some very painful lows.
    Martine Thompson, Bon Appétit, 22 Dec. 2020
  • That tight bear hug eight weeks ago is now entwined with some of the most hellish aspects of this war.
    Laura King, Los Angeles Times, 14 Dec. 2023
  • But those weeks leading up to my derm appointment were hellish, to say the least.
    Amber Brenza, SELF, 31 Mar. 2018
  • Hole pupfish has paddled back from the brink in a hellish desert domain.
    Los Angeles Times, 5 May 2022
  • That set the stage for a hellish weekend, when, amid a severe heat wave, wildfires broke out.
    Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 5 Feb. 2024
  • Just then came the hellish noise of an engine, and a motorcycle rose over a crest.
    Carolyn Wells, Longreads, 20 Apr. 2023
  • The cycle keeps going, like some type of hellish Groundhog Day.
    Mike Freeman, USA TODAY, 13 Apr. 2021
  • Iran, by contrast, is so hellish that its people were happy the U.S. won.
    Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 30 Nov. 2022
  • Their name may have hellish connotation, but the Speed Demons got their start in church.
    Sarah Nelson, The Indianapolis Star, 2 Sep. 2021
  • The fighting took place on the hellish Maeda Escarpment in April 1945.
    Mike Miller, Peoplemag, 14 Aug. 2022
  • By contrast, to be young in 2020 was—for most American teenagers—rather hellish.
    Niall Ferguson, WSJ, 30 Apr. 2021
  • North Korea is the most hellish, least free, most oppressive place on earth.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 20 Oct. 2020
  • Pricing and Which One to Buy Dodge offers few options for its hellish coupe.
    Austin Irwin, Car and Driver, 22 Mar. 2023
  • During that hellish stretch from late March to mid-April of 2020, hundreds were dying each day.
    Daniel Alarcón, The New Yorker, 7 Mar. 2022
  • Oh, and there’s a hellish shadow sea filled with killer flying monsters.
    Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, 23 Apr. 2021
  • With other people, being monologued at like this might have been hellish, but Welch was a little goofy, quite funny — her laugh is deep, sudden, frequent and startlingly loud.
    Lauren Groff, New York Times, 17 Oct. 2024
  • There’s a pure glee generated by the title’s fast and ferocious combat working in perfect harmony with its hellish visuals and sound design.
    Brian Mazique, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hellish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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