hell-raiser
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hell-raiser
First recorded in 1910–15
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Fedrick could be a hell-raiser, Williams told him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 16, 2025
Lewis had been a hell-raiser since he was a youth, and he was no different as an adult.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2025
The company is named in honor of its founder’s father, who is described on Illegal Pete’s website as “a bit of a good-natured hell-raiser in his day.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 24, 2019
Shaun White, a goofy hell-raiser when America first fell for him, had been reduced to tears.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 13, 2018
“Major fight between King and Queen. Gillian is in hell-raiser mode over there.”
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
Shalaiska said she has joined the nation’s nascent “IT army” of volunteer hackers and hell-raisers, who have worked to counter Russian psychological operations by overwhelming their websites and flooding their intelligence officers with spam.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 1, 2022
The 63-year-old, known as the co-founder, bassist and songwriter for rock’s hell-raisers Mötley Crüe, has been happily sober for 20 years.
From Fox News ● Jan. 22, 2022
Having drifted away from the album charts in the late 1970s in favour of classical compositions, she reviewed - and found a place in her heart - for Anglo-Irish hell-raisers The Pogues,
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2017
Frank seethes with the cumulative rage and mania of all the hell-raisers who preceded him, from the juvenile delinquent in Rebel Without a Cause to the ranting lunatic in Apocalypse Now.
From Salon ● Mar. 26, 2016
Silas was one of Jimmy’s oldest friends from high school, two-thirds of a group of hell-raisers that were still legendary in Catawba County.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
