heck
interjectionnounverbnouncommon in dialogue
- //hɛk//
Hell.
interjection
- 1
Hell.
Heck, what did I expect? It's too muddy out to go biking today.
Etymology
Late 19th century, originally dialectal northern English, from a euphemistic alteration of hell.
noun
- 1
Hell.
You can go to heck as far as I'm concerned.
"And the railway industry needs a heck of a lot of people to be up-skilled," notes Darroch.
verb
- 1
informalto break, to destroy
- 2
informalto mess up
Etymology
Possibly supported by feck.
noun
- 1
informalThe bolt or latch of a door.
- 2
informalA rack for cattle to feed at.
- 3
informalA door, especially one partly of latticework.
- 4
informalA latticework contrivance for catching fish.
- 5
informalAn apparatus for separating the threads of warps into sets, as they are wound upon the reel from the bobbins, in a warping machine.
- 6
informalA bend or winding of a stream.
Etymology
See hatch (“a half door”).
Forms
- plural
- hecks
- past tense
- hecked
- past participle
- hecked
- present participle
- hecking
- third person singular
- hecks