Meaning of devil | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The chief devil; Satan.
2. An evil creature, the objectification of a hostile and destructive force.
3. crowbar, wrecking bar, jemmy, jimmy, prybar, pinchbar, nail bar
4. A fictional image of a man, usually red or orange in skin color; with a set of horns on his head, a pointed goatee and a long tail and carrying a pitchfork; that represents evil and portrayed to children in an effort to discourage bad behavior.
5. The bad part of the conscience; the opposite to the angel.
6. A wicked or naughty person, or one who harbors reckless, spirited energy, especially in a mischievous way; usually said of a young child.
7. A thing that is awkward or difficult to understand or do.
8. Hell.
   euphemistic
9. A person, especially a man; used to express a particular opinion of him, usually in the phrases poor devil and lucky devil.
10. A printer's assistant.
11. A poltergeist that haunts printing works.
    India
12. A dust devil.
13. A barren, unproductive and unused area.
    dialectal, in-compounds
14. A dish, as a bone with the meat, broiled and excessively peppered; a grill with Cayenne pepper.
15. A machine for tearing or cutting rags, cotton, etc., as used in the production of mungo or shoddy.
16. A Tasmanian devil.
17. An endurance event where riders who fall behind are periodically eliminated.
    slang
18. Ellipsis of devil seam (“the seam between garboard strake and the keel, on wooden boats”).
    abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis

Equivalents

Examples

“The devil in me wants to let him suffer.”

“Those two kids are devils in a toy store.”

“That math problem was a devil.”

“What in the devil is that?”

“What the devil is that?”

“She is having a devil of a time fixing it.”

“You can go to the devil for all I care.”

“For he will not leave his listener to dwell upon sorrow when the print office beckons and he can show you what a good little devil he became.”

“The formation of tornados and water-spouts is very probably identical with that of dust-storms and "devils," viz., a sudden disturbance of the vertical equilibrium of the atmosphere, where by an upward rush of air is generated, which rapidly becomes spiral.”

“There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the "Zauba'ah" as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high[.]”

“devil strip”

“Men and women busy in baking, broiling, roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron.”

“The woollen things are torn to pieces by a machine having spiked rollers (termed a devil), cleansed, and the fibre spun with a certain proportion of new wool, the yarn being afterwards woven into the full-bodied but flimsy fabric termed shoddy.”

“He removes his food, water, and torch from the pack and then pushes it to the far end of the tent – no devil is going to rip his pack apart tonight.”

“In the 1800s, for example, workers at a wool company were scared that the devils would attack their sheep.”

CEFR level