ˈhell-bent, a. and adv. colloq. (orig. U.S.).
[hell n. 11 d, bent ppl. a. 3.]
‘Fiendishly’, doggedly, or recklessly determined (on or upon a certain course). Also advb. determinedly, recklessly.
| 1835 Knickerbocker VI. 12 A large encampment of savages,..‘hell-bent on carnage’. 1840 Pol. Song (Cent. Dict.), Maine went Hell-bent For Governor Kent. 1904 Boston Herald 2 Aug. 6 The Populist Democrats are going ‘hell-bent’, as the old song says, for Roosevelt. 1910 W. M. Raine B. O'Connor ii. 21, I know your kind—hell-bent to spend what you cash in. 1910 C. E. Mulford Hopalong Cassidy xxviii. 184 As soon as we lick this aggregation of trouble-hunters, what's left will ride hell⁓bent for that valley. 1912 L. J. Vance Destroying Angel ix, Unless you're hell-bent upon sticking around here. 1918 C. E. Mulford Man fr. Bar-20 xv. 152, I was hell⁓bent to get down here,..an' now I'm hell-bent to get back again. 1926 B. Cronin Red Dawson vi, Shaw sending the coach hell-bent round the curve of Jumping Lead. 1935 A. Squire Sing Sing Doctor iii. 32 We'll always have people hell bent on doing what they want to. 1957 Times 27 Dec. 6/1 Sir Edmund Hillary's message..went on to say: ‘We are heading hellbent for the Pole, God willing and crevasses permitting.’ 1967 Spectator 24 Nov. 633/1 This report has been widely used to sustain the charge that the French government was hell-bent on feeding speculation against the pound. 1968 Times 31 Oct. 11/3 It is now becoming..clear that an intelligent plan may have to be drawn, according to which those elements hell-bent on..embarrassing the School will have to be expelled from it. 1973 Times 31 July 1/3 A minority of Unionist Party members..feel obliged to vote with those who are hell-bent on destroying the first democratically elected assembly the Ulster people have had since the dissolution of Stormont. |