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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. interj. Used as a mild oath.
  2. n. Slang Used as an intensive: had a heck of a lot of money; was crowded as heck.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A door with an open or latticework panel, or having its upper part hinged independently of the lower part.
  2. n. A latticed gate.
  3. n. A rack for holding fodder for cattle.
  4. n. A contrivance for catching fish, made in the form of a latticework or grating: as, a salmon-heck.
  5. n. In weaving, one of two or more vertical frames with gratings having eyes for receiving the warp-threads, each eye receiving one thread of the warp, and the alternate vertical motion of the gratings separating the warp-threads to form an opening or shed for the passage of the shuttle.
  6. n. A latch or bolt, for fastening a door.
  7. n. The bend or winding of a stream.

Wiktionary

  1. interj. Hell.
  2. n. Hell.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The bolt or latch of a door.
  2. n. A rack for cattle to feed at.
  3. n. A door, especially one partly of latticework; -- called also heck door.
  4. n. A latticework contrivance for catching fish.
  5. n. An apparatus for separating the threads of warps into sets, as they are wound upon the reel from the bobbins, in a warping machine.
  6. n. A bend or winding of a stream.
  7. n. hell; -- a euphemism. Used commonly in the phrase “What the heck”.

Etymologies

  1. Alteration of hell.

Examples

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Comments

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‘heck’ has been looked up 1249 times, loved by 1 person, added to 15 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 13.