Definition of "hellfire"

hellfire

/ˈhɛlˌfaɪə/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural hellfires
1. (uncountable) The fire of Hell.
2. (uncountable) Fire produced by the Devil, or a similar supernatural creature connected to Hell.
3. (countable) A fire that burns with unusual heat or ferocity.
4. (countable, military) Ellipsis of AGM-114 Hellfire.
adjective
comparative more hellfire, superlative most hellfire
1. Of or relating to a violent, apocalyptic and ultimate day of reckoning and judgment; usually characterizing a form of Christian preaching.
  Quotations
  The advance of liberalism, so-called, in Christianity, during the past fifty years, may fairly be called a victory of healthy-mindedness within the church over the morbidness with which the old hell-fire theology was more harmoniously related.
  1902, William James, “Lectures 4 & 5”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […]
  Sermons such as The Eternity of Hell Torments and The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable, as well as several manuscript examples, serve to mark the distinction between a true hellfire sermon and the proto-eschatological concerns of Sinners [in the Hands of an Angry God], consumed as it is with the here and now.
  2005, Sang Hyun Lee, The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, University of Princeton Press, page 253
interjection
1. hell; damn; blast