hell bride

English

Noun

hell bride (plural hell brides)

1. (literary) A female monster or demon; a hag, ogress, harpy or the like.
   • 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 42:

              Grendel's mother,
     monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.

   • 2007 November, L33T, page 75, column 1:

     While we moviegoers are nothing but grateful to Gaiman and Avery for their part in bringing us Ms. Jolie as the serpentine and mostly-naked hell-bride, there are scores of scholars out there who're peeved[.]

   • 2024, Lindy Ryan, Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror‎, Black Spot Books:

     I knew then, I'd left too late
     to flee the curse, the harrowing
     rumours of a hag, a hell-bride,
     instead of a warrior queen[.]