helly

See also: Helly

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛ.li/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophone: heli
• Rhymes: -ɛli

Etymology 1

From Middle English helly, hellic, from Old English hellīċ (“of hell, hellish, infernal”), equivalent to hell +‎ -y.

Adjective

helly (comparative more helly, superlative most helly)

1. (obsolete) Hellish, infernal.

   Synonyms: Hadean, stygian; see also Thesaurus:infernal

   • 1603, Samuel Harsnet, A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures; quoted in Shakespeare's England: Life in Elizabethan & Jacobean Times, 2013, →ISBN:

     These monster-swarms his Holiness and his helly crew have scraped and raked together out of old doting historiographers, wizardising augurs, imposturing soothsayers, dreaming poets, chimerical conceiters, and coiners of fables, […] .

   • 1892, Theodore Sydney Vaughn, Satan in Arms Against Columbus, page 138:

     Then wavered all the rebel rings, And of a sudden, ere a single blow Was struck, precipitous they shrieking fled, And sought the portals of their Helly home.

Etymology 2

From hell +‎ -y

Noun

helly (comparative more helly, superlative most helly)

1. (mildly vulgar, slang) Synonym of hell.

Related terms

• rakehelly
• what the helly / the helly

References

• “helly”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.