heck

See also: Heck

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /hɛk/
    • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛk

Etymology 1

Late 19th century, originally dialectal northern English, from a euphemistic alteration of hell.[1][2]

Interjection

heck

  1. (euphemistic) Hell.
    Heck, what did I expect? It's too muddy out to go biking today.
Translations

Noun

heck (uncountable)

  1. (euphemistic) Hell.
    You can go to heck as far as I'm concerned.
    • 2024 March 20, Richard Foster, “Vital experience in an open-air classroom”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 57:
      "And the railway industry needs a heck of a lot of people to be up-skilled," notes Darroch.
Usage notes

Heck usually only replaces hell in idiomatic expressions or as a generic intensifier or vulgarity. It is only rarely, and for intentionally jocular effect, used as a euphemism for the actual concept of hell.

Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Blend of to heck (destroyed, messed up) + fuck, possibly supported by feck.

Verb

heck (third-person singular simple present hecks, present participle hecking, simple past and past participle hecked) (informal)

  1. to break, to destroy
    Synonyms: fuck, bork
  2. to mess up
Derived terms
  • heck up

Etymology 3

See hatch (a half door).

Alternative forms

Noun

heck (plural hecks)

  1. The bolt or latch of a door.
  2. A rack for cattle to feed at.
  3. (obsolete) A door, especially one partly of latticework.
  4. A latticework contrivance for catching fish.
  5. (weaving) An apparatus for separating the threads of warps into sets, as they are wound upon the reel from the bobbins, in a warping machine.
  6. A bend or winding of a stream.
Derived terms

References

  1. Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.
  2. Wright, Joseph (1902) The English Dialect Dictionary, volume 3, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 125

Further reading

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Verb

heck

  1. singular imperative of hecken
  2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of hecken

Middle English

Noun

heck

  1. Alternative form of hacche
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