hellfire

plural hellfires · alternative Hellfire · alternative hell-fire · alternative Hell-fire · alternative hell-fire

1. uncountableThe fire of Hell.

   The sound of the gang was diminishing into the distance, and the prophet of doom, restored to eloquence, was sending threatful bolts of damnation, hell-fire, and a brimstone gehenna hurtling after them.

   1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 59

2. uncountableFire produced by the Devil, or a similar supernatural creature connected to Hell.
3. broadlycountableA fire that burns with unusual heat or ferocity.
4. abbreviationcountableellipsisgovernmentEllipsis of AGM-114 Hellfire.

comparative more hellfire · superlative most hellfire · alternative hell-fire

1. Of or relating to a violent, apocalyptic and ultimate day of reckoning and judgment; usually characterizing a form of Christian preaching.

   The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty years, may fairly be called a victory of healthy-mindedness within the church over the morbidness with which the old hell-fire theology was more harmoniously related.

   1902, William James, “Lectures 4 & 5”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   Sermons such as The Eternity of Hell Torments and The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable, as well as several manuscript examples, serve to mark the distinction between a true hellfire sermon and the proto-eschatological concerns of Sinners [in the Hands of an Angry God], consumed as it is with the here and now.

   2005, Sang Hyun Lee, The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, University of Princeton Press, page 253

alternative hell-fire

1. hell; damn; blast