How to Use hell-bent in a Sentence

hell-bent

adjective
  • Trump seems hell-bent on killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
    New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 22 Mar. 2025
  • To plumb the majesty of such a place, to know its secrets, requires more than a hell-bent drive over Newfound Gap.
    Tracey Minkin, Southern Living, 12 July 2023
  • The young man is hell-bent on fighting, and Jamie laughs at his stubbornness.
    Lincee Ray, EW.com, 24 June 2023
  • Seward and Sumner tried to prove to the Cabinet that the British were hell-bent on war.
    Zaakir Tameez june 11, Literary Hub, 11 June 2025
  • But Hoyer has been hell-bent this winter to make sure a lack of relief depth won’t be an issue in 2025.
    Sahadev Sharma, The Athletic, 5 Feb. 2025
  • But Hoyer has been hell-bent this winter to make sure a lack of relief depth won’t be an issue in 2025.
    Sahadev Sharma, The Athletic, 5 Feb. 2025
  • These systems may not be enough to stop a hell-bent Beijing from getting boots on Taiwan’s shores.
    Jonathan Caverley, Foreign Affairs, 7 Aug. 2024
  • But the county is less likely to get the money if Fort Lauderdale is hell-bent against a bridge, according to the experts.
    Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel, 12 July 2024
  • There’s no doubt that if healthy, Brown will be impacting a team that is hell-bent on returning to the postseason for the first time in five years.
    Sahadev Sharma, The Athletic, 25 Feb. 2025
  • There’s no doubt that if healthy, Brown will be impacting a team that is hell-bent on returning to the postseason for the first time in five years.
    Sahadev Sharma, The Athletic, 25 Feb. 2025
  • Indeed, some Israelis are hell-bent on something worse than Trump’s deal of the century.
    Raja Khalidi, Foreign Affairs, 20 Jan. 2025
  • Kreese is hell-bent on his goal to get to the Sekai Taikai with Cobra Kai, and that feels like a long, ruminating ambition for him.
    Selena Kuznikov, Variety, 20 July 2024
  • The men so hell-bent on revenge against Tea’s users are illustrating that hatred of women is alive and well.
    Faith Hill, The Atlantic, 30 July 2025
  • This is a group bonded by the dizzying heights of global acclaim, yet hell-bent on protecting the young boy at its center.
    Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 10 Apr. 2025
  • The Sun Sentinel is hell-bent on championing the demise of South Florida due to global warming.
    Chuck Lehmann, Sun Sentinel, 20 Apr. 2023
  • Ramirez attempted to flee via car-jacking but was held down by an angry mob hell-bent on his capture.
    Emily Blackwood, People.com, 10 Dec. 2024
  • Since last season ended with a thud in the Peach Bowl, Marques Hagans was hell-bent on ensuring his receivers wouldn’t be the team’s weak link again.
    Audrey Snyder, The Athletic, 6 Jan. 2025
  • The schedule is demanding, but Shiu, who is 63 years old and has been dancing for almost 50 years, is hell-bent on continuing to lead and train with the West Coast team.
    Stephanie Lam, The Mercury News, 27 Jan. 2025
  • The schedule is demanding, but Shiu, who is 63 years old and has been dancing for almost 50 years, is hell-bent on continuing to lead and train with the West Coast team.
    Stephanie Lam, The Mercury News, 27 Jan. 2025
  • But nobody's hell-bent on doing this in the Republican Party.
    Kaia Hubbard, CBS News, 16 Feb. 2024
  • Clearly, Hailey Bieber is hell-bent on pushing her highlighter swimwear agenda.
    Glamour, 1 Apr. 2023
  • Those are directives straight from Berube that Robertson has been hell-bent on implementing.
    Joshua Kloke, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2025
  • Fans online appeared charmed by the scrappy cast of characters who were hell-bent on finishing the Shakespearean work.
    Kalhan Rosenblatt, NBC News, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Fans online appeared charmed by the scrappy cast of characters who were hell-bent on finishing the Shakespearean work.
    Kalhan Rosenblatt, NBC News, 20 Feb. 2025
  • Andra Day gives one of the year's best genre performances as Ebony Jackson, a struggling single mother raising two kids in a house hell-bent on taking their souls.
    Ryan Coleman, EW.com, 5 Oct. 2024
  • But other than that, this movie is nonstop adrenaline, with Spielberg hell-bent on topping Raiders’ stunt sequences.
    Tim Grierson, Vulture, 20 June 2025
  • Mack was hell-bent on pursuing music, scribbling down his thoughts and rhymes in a composition notebook and teaching himself to play the drums.
    Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone, 16 Aug. 2024
  • Context: Reinsdorf is reportedly in talks with a group that is hell-bent on bringing a baseball franchise to Nashville.
    Justin Kaufmann, Axios, 17 Oct. 2024
  • For Putnam, great wasn’t great enough — the engineer was hell-bent on innovation, crafting state-of-the-art rooms with equipment that would soon be replicated around the country.
    Kenan Draughorne, Los Angeles Times, 20 Mar. 2023
  • But why is Trump so hell-bent on annexing Greenland in the first place?
    Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair, 20 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hell-bent.' 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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