the dickens
Adverb
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Adverb
- (euphemistic) The devil.
- She can go to the dickens for what she said.
- Used as an intensifier.
- Why the dickens did he do that?
- It is cold as the dickens out here!
- c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The Merry VViues of VVindsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene ii], page 49 ↗, column 1:
- I cannot tell what the dickens his name / is that my husband had him of. What do you call your / knight's name, sirrah?
- (intensifier) seeSynonyms en
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003