netherworld
/ˈnɛðəwɜːld
/noun (the netherworld)
1The underworld; hell: their souls were forever doomed to wander aimlessly in the netherworld...
- The local Indians, the Chumash, had a legend of something that translates roughly to ‘mouth of hell’ - a place where demons emerge from the netherworld and walk the earth.
- Rachel has moved her son Aiden to a small coastal town in pursuit of the quiet life and television sets that aren't passageways to the netherworld.
- Trapped in a car, I watched in absolute helplessness, (the sort I hope which only exists in nightmares) as this beast of the netherworld repeatedly launched itself at the windshield with great force.
Synonyms
hell, the underworld, the infernal regions, the nether regions, the abyss, the land of the dead;
the abode of the damned, eternal damnation, perdition;
Biblical Gehenna, Tophet, Abaddon;
Judaism Sheol;
Greek Mythology Hades, Tartarus, Acheron;
British the other place
literary the pit
archaic the lower world
1.1A hidden or illicit area of activity: the narcotic netherworld thriving in post-war America...
- A few others, finally, have been drawn into the netherworld of off-stage intrigue and parapolitical violence.
- We suspected there was a netherworld of corrupt activity.
- In most instances I think we'd find that a combination of factors led these children to descend into the netherworld of crime.
1.2An ill-defined area of activity: that cinematic netherworld between the multiplexes and the video stores...
- In some respects, Canada lives in a bizarre netherworld between the U.S. and Britain (and now, Hong Kong, China, India, etc.).
- Forget the synthetic decadence of the Bravery - the real star of New York's sexually ambiguous netherworld is this male modern answer to Nina Simone.
- What enraged and confused the censors was the film's approach to that strange netherworld between dreaming and waking states, in which so much unusual activity transpires.