hellscape

English

Etymology

From hell +‎ -scape.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɛl.skeɪp/

Noun

hellscape (plural hellscapes)

1. A hellish landscape.

   a Dantesque hellscape

   • 1990, Stephen King, “The Langoliers”, in Four Past Midnight:

     As they crossed the Western Slope toward Utah, the dark began to come down again. The setting sun threw an orange-red glare over a fragmented hellscape that none of them could look at for long; one by one, they followed Bethany's example and pulled their windowshades.

   • 2009 September 7, Janet Maslin, “News at Styx: Who’s Hot in Hades”, in New York Times‎:

     Mr. Butler, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain,” treats his newest novelistic conceit as an occasion to toss every possible ingredient into a fanciful hellscape and then let these elements run wild.

   • 2024 December 17, Tim Miller, “Exodus: Odyssey” (4:17 from the start), in Secret Level‎, season 1, episode 11, spoken by Kara Voss (Lily Cowles):

     “Traveling at near light speed, one year passed for Nik while eight years passed for Mari on Scotia. Once a thriving Celestial world, now a radioactive hellscape. Some expeditions to her harsh surface found priceless artifacts. Most found death.”

2. (figurative) An exceptionally unpleasant, disagreeable, or harsh place or event.
   • 2015 August 14, Chris Eggertsen, “Miley Cyrus just got really honest about the hellscape that was 'Hannah Montana'”, in HitFix‎, archived from the original on 13 December 2015:

     Miley Cyrus just got really honest about the hellscape that was "Hannah Montana"

   • 2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, “Scott Morrison must heed the lesson of Donald Trump and slap down Craig Kelly”, in The Guardian‎:

     Avoiding a cacophony is a worthy objective, because Australia has managed to largely sidestep the post-truth hellscape the US has endured during the pandemic because politicians, by and large, have chosen to inhabit a universe of shared facts and common messages.

   • 2022 October 27, Lauren Hirsch, quoting Elon Musk, “Elon Musk Reaches Out to Advertisers Ahead of Deadline for Twitter Deal”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     But, he added, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape where anything can be said with no consequences!”

Translations

hellish landscape

German: Höllenlandschaft f Portuguese: paisagem infernal f Swedish: helveteslandskap n Ukrainian: пекельний пейзаж m (pekelʹnyj pejzaž)

Further reading

• “hellscape”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “hellscape”, in Google Books Ngram Viewer.