heck
See also: Heck
English
editAlternative forms
editPronunciation
edit- IPA(key): /hɛk/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -ɛk
Etymology 1
editLate 19th century, originally dialectal northern English, from a euphemistic alteration of hell.[1][2]
Interjection
editheck
- (euphemistic) Hell.
- Heck, what did I expect? It's too muddy out to go biking today.
Translations
editeuphemism of hell
Noun
editheck (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
editHeck 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
edit- See under hell.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editEtymology 2
editBlend of to heck (“destroyed, messed up”) + fuck, possibly supported by feck.
Verb
editheck (third-person singular simple present hecks, present participle hecking, simple past and past participle hecked) (informal)
Derived terms
editEtymology 3
editSee hatch (“a half door”).
Alternative forms
editNoun
editheck (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
editReferences
edit- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
- ^ Wright, Joseph (1902) The English Dialect Dictionary[1], volume 3, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 125
Further reading
edit- “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
editGerman
editPronunciation
editAudio: (file)
Verb
editheck
Middle English
editNoun
editheck
- Alternative form of hacche
Categories:
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛk
- Rhymes:English/ɛk/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English interjections
- English euphemisms
- English terms with usage examples
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English blends
- English verbs
- English informal terms
- English countable nouns
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Weaving
- English minced oaths
- German terms with audio pronunciation
- German non-lemma forms
- German verb forms
- German colloquialisms
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns