> as lemmas

1579 in M. Sellers York Mercers & Merchant Adventurers (1918) 219 Wee shall have..brawles, and suspitions amongest us, as if weare to begin hell uponn earthe.

1590 J. Smythe Certain Disc. Weapons Proeme *iij b They verifie the olde Proverb, which is, That such as were never but in Hell, doo thinke that there is no other Heaven.

1617 F. Moryson Itinerary iii. 53 England..is said to be the Hell of Horses, the Purgatory of Servants, and the Paradise of Weomen.

1640 H. Mill Nights Search i. 8 He sets out sin (most lively) black as hell.

1780 W. Cowper Progress of Error 609 He that will be cheated to the last, Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.

1785 W. Cowper Task v. 862 Fables false as hell..lure down to death The uninformed and heedless souls of men.

1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue Cabbage, cloth, stuff, or silk purloined by taylors from their employers, which they deposit in a place called hell..when taxed with their knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken any, they wish they may find it in hell.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. (1871) I. iii. 207 The prisons were hells on earth.

1942 J. Thurber Lett. (2002) 351 All hell was pretty sure to happen and it did—adhesions, recurrence of iritis and all the trimmings.

1997 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Apr. 352/2 All the food..came ‘laser-fried’, whatever the hell that means.