hellscape

noun

hell·​scape ˈhel-ˌskāp 

plural hellscapes

: a hellish landscape : a harshly unpleasant place or environment

I blame growing up in Southern California—this did not prepare me for real winter, much less the frigid hellscape that is New York in January.

—Aliza Arbabanel

Meanwhile, it's heartbreaking to see Route 33, once called out by Jalopnik as "America's greatest driving road," reduced to this horrifying hellscape. And, of course, to think about all the nearby people and animals and communities being inundated with fire and smoke.

—Andrew P. Collins

Examples of hellscape in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Chess, Unlike War, is a Game of Perfect Information The late poet Charles Simic was a chess prodigy who used the queen and her court to conjure a hellscape that invoked a childhood in war-time Belgrade. —JSTOR Daily, 24 June 2024

The what’s-it-all-mean aspect was fairly routine, if only because Trump has dragged national politics and the media that covers it through such a hellscape of absurdity that even the biggest moments threaten to lose some of their impact. —Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 30 May 2024

As the star of Ari Aster’s domestic hellscape, Toni Collette’s Annie Graham is horror’s reigning Worst Matriarch. —Jordan Crucchiola, Vulture, 10 May 2024

Well, that’s where the hellscape inside the social media sewer takes over. —Dan Wiederer, Hartford Courant, 25 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1894, in the meaning defined above