hellacious
hel·la·cious/hɛˈleɪʃəs/adjective
hellacious is spelled H-E-L-L-A-C-I-O-U-S: 10 letters and 3 syllables (hel·la·cious). It appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 124,184th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, hellacious means “horrible, awful, hellish, agonizing, difficult” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in hellacious?
| Letters | 10: H-E-L-L-A-C-I-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: hel·la·cious |
| In writing | about once in every 17 million words; the 124,184th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is hellacious?
Hellacious appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 124,184th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hellacious?
- /hɛˈleɪʃəs/
Hellacious has 3 syllables, split hel·la·cious in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-hellacious.ogg, En-us-hellacious.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hellacious
- more hellacious comparative
- most hellacious superlative
- helatious
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hellacious mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
horrible, awful, hellish, agonizing, difficult.
- 2
nasty, repellent.
- 3
slangRemarkable, unbelievable, unusual.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).