the dickens
(Redirected from what the dickens)
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
See dickens.
Adverb[edit]
- (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!
- a. 1597, Shakespeare, William, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 3, scene 2, lines 17–19:
- I cannot tell what the dickens his name / is that my husband had him of. What do you call your / knight's name, sirrah?
- 1918, Burroughs, Edgar Rice, chapter IV, in The Land That Time Forgot:
- "That's it," I exclaimed, "--that's just the taste exactly, though I haven't experienced it since boyhood; but how can water from a flowing stream, taste thus, and what the dickens makes it so warm? It must be at least 70 or 80 Fahrenheit, possibly higher."
Synonyms[edit]
- (intensifier): For semantic relationships of this term, see the dickens in the Thesaurus.