hells

noun

plural of hell
1
as in nightmares
a situation or state that causes great suffering and unhappiness picking cotton under the hot summer sun was hell

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in messes
a state in which everything is out of order all hell broke loose when the jury's verdict was announced

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of hells An episode of septicemia, with its hells and paradises, its nightmares and hallucinations, transforms Borges into a story writer. — Literary Hub, 26 Aug. 2026 The Avici hell is the lowest and most terrible level of the eight hot hells of Buddhism, where those who’ve committed serious crimes (like parricide) must face constant suffering. — Regina Kim, Forbes.com, 1 June 2026 Smith stays largely mum on the news of the day, be that Kirk’s killing, or ICE raids, or whatever hells await in the coming weeks. — Sam Kestenbaum, Vulture, 2 Jan. 2026 The protagonist's youth doesn't defang the story, as Silent Hill f wastes no time thrusting Hinako and her friends into their personal hells. — Zackery Cuevas, PC Magazine, 23 Sep. 2025 All’s well that metal-as-hells well. — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 27 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hells
  1. nightmares
  2. messes
  3. horrors
  4. confusions
  5. agonies
  6. jumbles
  7. miseries
  8. havoc
Noun
  • With a fifth member deceased, the rest become plagued by nightmares as something ancient arrives to collect.
    — Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Nov. 2026
  • California dreams and nightmares The Cheesecake Factory is a punchline.
    — Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2026
Definition of nightmares
Noun
  • Andrew Schaefer, a forty-two-year-old father in Orlando, Florida, who helps people out of tax messes, also likes to wager on elections.
    — Charles Bethea, New Yorker, 7 Nov. 2026
  • Instead of bright or pure white finishes, creamy tones are more forgiving against scuffs, fingerprints, smudges, and everyday kitchen messes.
    — Timothy Dale, The Spruce, 3 Nov. 2026
Definition of messes
Noun
  • The horrors of the atomic bomb, America’s culpability and relation to postwar Japan, and the morality of revenge are major themes in Minus Zero.
    — James Grebey, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2026
  • When Eric Bentley assembled this 1972 docudrama from House Un-American Activities Committee transcripts, the playwright savvily stripped his work of dramatic license and laid bare the Red Scare’s horrors.
    — Thomas Floyd, Washington Post, 5 Nov. 2026
Definition of horrors
Noun
  • Before the Lost Weekend, John and Yoko had their New York Year — turning their personal confusions into beautifully vivid moments of rage and pain.
    — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 14 Oct. 2025
Definition of confusions
Noun
  • There are few harsher agonies than waiting, and throughout the great expanse of the CPKC ‘International’ Grand Prix presented by Rolex at the Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’, two riders felt that in very different ways.
    — Tilly Berendt, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2026
  • Sadly, in discouraging all the phantom agonies, FIFA inadvertently seems to have done away with the equally farcical phenomenon that is Magic Spray®.
    — Anthony Crupi, Sportico.com, 17 July 2026
Definition of agonies
Noun
  • Arches and natural bridges sweep like buttresses from jumbles of rock, giving this landscape a mystical, cathedral-like quality.
    — Madison Chapman, Outside, 25 Mar. 2026
  • Macaroons are chewy jumbles of coconut bound together with egg whites and sweetened condensed milk.
    — Lynda Balslev, Mercury News, 10 Feb. 2026
Definition of jumbles
Noun
  • Some residents said hope is elusive given the island’s litany of miseries – from natural disasters to a bankrupt government to a financial control board that manages funding for infrastructure.
    — Isabel Rosales, CNN Money, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Cyclospora, an intestinal parasite, has sickened thousands of people and hospitalized hundreds with explosive diarrhea, painful cramping, or other gastrointestinal miseries.
    — Emily Kay Votruba, EverydayHealth.com, 3 Aug. 2026
Definition of miseries
Noun
  • Meanwhile, the war has wreaked global havoc with no end in sight.
    — S. C. M. Paine, Foreign Affairs, 3 Nov. 2026
  • In December 2004 such a wave swept over Earth, causing some havoc.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 30 Oct. 2026
Definition of havoc

Browse Nearby Words

hell-raising
hells
helm
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Cite this Entry

“Hells.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hells. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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