INFERNAL • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Infernal

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/ɪnfˈərnəl/ Listen

adjective

Infernal adj.

Of or pertaining to or suitable for the lower regions, inhabited, according to the ancients, by the dead; pertaining to Pluto's realm of the dead, the Tartarus of the ancients. "The Elysian fields, the infernal monarchy."

Of or pertaining to, resembling, or inhabiting, hell; suitable for hell, or to the character of the inhabitants of hell; hellish; diabolical; as, infernal spirits, or conduct. "The instruments or abettors in such infernal dealings."

Infernal machine, a machine or apparatus maliciously designed to explode, and destroy life or property.

Infernal stone (lapis infernalis), lunar caustic; formerly so called. The name was also applied to caustic potash.

Synonyms: Tartarean; Stygian; hellish; devilish; diabolical; satanic; fiendish; malicious.

noun

Infernal n. An inhabitant of the infernal regions; also, the place itself. (Obs.)

See images of 'Infernal'

Etymology of 'Infernal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Infernal" Quotes from Famous Books

... answered the baron; "but to whom shall I send? My allies are at York, where I should have also been but for this infernal enterprise." ...

— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... the three: Clytemnestra is the fallen unrestored; Helen is the fallen restored; Penelope is the unfallen, who keeps a home for her absent husband during twenty years. The tragic, the mediated, the pure; or, to take a later analogy, the infernal, the purgatorial, the paradisaical; such are the three typical female characters of Homer, ranging from guilt, through repentance, to innocence. In this framework lies quite all possible characterization. Naturally Agamemnon shows a bitter vein of misogyny, ...

— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... Here, too, those who in times past have persecuted witches, will find justification for their cruelties. The actors in one of the blackest pages in human history, claim Scripture authority for their infernal deeds. Far into the eighteenth century in England, the clergy dragged innocent women into the courts as witches, and learned judges pronounced on them the sentence of torture and death. The chapter on witchcraft in Lecky's History of Rationalism, contains the most heartrending facts in ...

— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... substances are mixed together the result is a compound truly infernal in its potentialities for mischief. It is not an explosive but if set on fire it burns with an intensity that is positively appalling. Nothing will put it out; no quantity of water has any effect upon the raging flames ...

— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... evil and misfortune, security in the stead of anxiety, were as fatal to Esther as her past wretchedness would have been to her young companions. Planted in corruption, she had grown up in it. That infernal home still had a hold on her, in spite of the commands of a despotic will. What she loathed was life to her, what she loved ...

— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

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