pave the road to hell

English

Etymology

From the proverb the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

pave the road to hell (third-person singular simple present paves the road to hell, present participle paving the road to hell, simple past and past participle paved the road to hell)

1. (idiomatic) To lead to a disaster by acting with good intentions.
   • 2015, Steven Pinker, “The moral imperative for bioethics”, in The Boston Globe‎^[1]:

     In the other direction, treatments that were decried in their time as paving the road to hell, including vaccination, transfusions, anesthesia, artificial insemination, organ transplants, and in-vitro fertilization, have become unexceptional boons to human well-being.