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Also, one devil or the devil of a; hell of a. Infernally annoying or difficult, as in This is a devil of an assembly job, or She had one devil of a time getting through the traffic, or I had a hell of a morning sitting in that doctor’s office. The first expression dates from the mid-1700s. The variant is a couple of decades newer and its precise meaning depends on the context. For example, We had a hell of a time getting here invariably means we had a very difficult or annoying time, but He is one hell of a driver could mean that he is either very good or very bad (see hell of a, def. 2).
In addition to the idioms beginning with devil
- devil and deep blue sea
- devil of a
- devil take the hindmost, the
- devil to pay, the
also see:
- between a rock and a hard place (devil and deep blue sea)
- full of it (the devil)
- give someone hell (the devil)
- give the devil his due
- go to hell (the devil)
- luck of the devil
- play the devil with
- raise Cain (the devil)
- speak of the devil