dickens

What it means

1. euphemisticThe devil.

   You scared the dickens out of me.

   2 more examples

   She can go to the dickens for what she said.

   “Four weeks ago, I was sitting down for breakfast with my beautiful wife, Evie. Evie and I were sitting down with our two beautiful little boys, Connor and C-C-- Cah-- ristopher, and Christopher looks up to me-- he's six years old and full of the dickens--”

   2023 July 27, Max Brockman & Shana Gohd, “The Campaign” (8:49 from the start), in What We Do in the Shadows, season 5, episode 4, spoken by Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch)

2. A disturbance or row.

   And lastly, thanks to my children, Dutch and Tallulah, for allowing me to see the magic of everything I love about popular culture anew through their eyes. This one is for you two dickens!

   2013, Robert C. Sickels, “Acknowledgments”, in 100 Entertainers Who Changed America: An Encyclopedia of Pop Culture Luminaries, Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, LLC, →ISBN

   1 more example

   Hugh considered saying, Then I guess I'll just have to kick you a few times instead, you frog son of a bitch. Then he thought of that fat bastard Keeton, handing him a pink slip for kicking up dickens in the local tavern.

   1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

3. Used as an intensifier in the phrase the dickens; see that entry.

   We had the dickens of a row.

   1 more example

   Why the dickens did he do that?

In a sentence

She can go to the dickens for what she said.

Where it comes from

Origin: 1590–1600; apparently a fanciful use of the proper name Dicken, diminutive form of Dick.