THE DEVIL

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

Meaning:

Something difficult or awkward to do or deal with

Example:

it will be the devil to solve

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("the devil" is a kind of...):

difficulty; trouble (an effort that is inconvenient)

The devil seemed to be in him at such times, and he was capable of anything.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the devil?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

You got into the devil's country, sah, and he take you all to himself.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then, there's the devil to pay among them, that's all!

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He wished him at the devil with all his heart.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

"What the devil can you do with a wolf in California?"

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil eluded my grasp.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The devil must have put them into your head.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

"To the devil!" was the consoling answer.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

“I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)