inferno
[in-fur-noh; for 3 also Italian een-fer-naw]
- hell; the infernal regions.
- a place or region that resembles hell: The ironworks was an inferno of molten steel and half-naked bodies.
- (initial capital letter, italics) the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, depicting hell and the suffering of the damned.Compare paradise(def 7), purgatory(def 2).
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Origin of inferno
Synonyms
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comDictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for inferno
Contemporary Examples
You go right straight into the inferno, and when you get older, you pull back.
Their captivity was a pretty big story for a while, but then came September, and the inferno of Lower Manhattan.
Now Paradise and the Inferno are understood philosophically as states of being, not places on a chart.
A sitcom conceived by, written by, and starring her understandably ignited an inferno of buzz.
Still, one can easily envision hordes clutching their dog-eared paperbacks of Inferno straining to find the flag.
Historical Examples
So, she went through the inferno of days and nights in a dreariness of suffering that was deadly.
Within the LawMarvin Dana
We stood now on the rim of the crater, looking straight into the inferno.
The UnderdogF. Hopkinson Smith
And here, in this inferno of luggage, was White Fang deserted by the master.
White FangJack London
It was an inferno of shifting lights and long leaping shadows.
The HarborErnest Poole
What stories they had to tell of the inferno they had come from!
inferno
- the inferno (sometimes capital) hell; the infernal region
- any place or state resembling hell, esp a conflagration
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Word Origin
C19: from Italian, from Late Latin infernus hell
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for inferno
n.
1834, from Italian inferno, from Latin infernus (see infernal).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Inferno
Note
By extension, an “inferno” is a hot and terrible place or condition.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.