a living hell

living hell

An extremely unpleasant situation. She described her marriage to her alcoholic husband as a living hell. So many bad things happened to me that year that it was a living hell.
See also: hell, living
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a living hell

COMMON If a situation or a place is a living hell, it is extremely unpleasant. School is a living hell for some children. Their marriage had become a living hell.
See also: hell, living
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

living hell, a

A condition or place of acute misery and distress. This expression uses hell in the sense of the afterworld’s place of eternal torment. “Even after the divorce was final, he made her life a living hell.” Also put as hell on earth, it appears in such contexts as “Jungle warfare is a true hell on earth.”
See also: living
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • come to a bad end
  • come to a bad/sticky end
  • horse and rabbit stew
  • a sad state (of affairs)
  • a sorry state (of affairs)
  • be a fate worse than death
  • he that would go to sea for pleasure would go to hell for a pastime
  • He that would go to sea for pleasure, would go to hell for a pastime
  • go from bad to worse
  • from bad to worse
References in periodicals archive
"These three years have been a living hell where I have been kept from a career which has been my life.
Teacher's delight at bullying ruling
His former teammates threatened to make his life a living hell should he return to school sports in the fall; he did not return.
STILL SHORT OF THE GOAL