heck

See also: Heck

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /hɛk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛk

Etymology 1

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

Interjection

heck

2. (euphemistic) Hell.

   Heck, what did I expect? It's too muddy out to go biking today.

Translations

euphemism of hell

• Bulgarian: по дяволите! (po djavolite!)
• Finnish: hitto (fi), hemmetti, helkkari (fi)
• Italian: diamine
• Maori: ata (mi), taukahore
• Norwegian: helsike
• Portuguese: diacho (pt)
• Spanish: caray (es)
• Swedish: Hälsingland (sv)

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

• See under hell.

Derived terms

• as heck
• bleeding heck
• bloody heck
• blooming heck
• for the heck of it
• heck board
• heck-care
• heck no
• heck of a
• heck yeah
• like heck
• oh my heck
• snowball's chance in heck
• the heck
• to heck in a handbasket
• what the heck
• when heck freezes over
• where the heck

 

Translations

euphemism of hell

• Danish: søren
• Finnish: hitto (fi)
• Italian: diavolo (it) m
• Swedish: helsike (sv)

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)

2. to break, to destroy

   Synonyms: fuck, bork

3. to mess up

Derived terms

• heck up

Etymology 3

See hatch (“a half door”).

Alternative forms

• hack

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

• at heck and manger

Further reading

• “heck”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “heck”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “heck”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• chek

German

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (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