go to hell

The third sense is first attested in Shakespeare. The second sense is a variation of older go to the devil. The literal sense is attested since Old English with various verbs for "to go".^[1]

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go to hell (third-person singular simple present goes to hell, present participle going to hell, simple past went to hell, past participle gone to hell)

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see go,‎ to,‎ hell.
2. To go out the window; be ruined; be now useless.

   Well, that plan has gone to hell.

   • 2024 August 4, George Chidi, quoting Donald Trump, “Name-calling and hyperbole: Trump continues fear-mongering fest at Georgia rally”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     In my opinion, they want us to lose. If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell.

3. (derogatory, somewhat offensive) An expression of anger and contempt directed at someone, especially after that individual has committed a serious crime or transgression.

   Why did Nancy do that to Jake? She can go to hell.

   You want me to voluntarily work the weekend without pay? Go to hell!

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 173, line 21:

     Let Fortune goe to hell for it, not I.

   • 1914, Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter XLVI:

     I shook my head and held up my rifle. "You'll have to go aloft to do it, and the first man that gets into the shrouds will get this."
     "Then she can go to hell for all we care," he said, with emphatic conclusiveness.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     "Oh, go to hell!" said Silas, and kicked open his own unlatched door.

• (to be ruined or useless): go out the window, go to pot, go down the drain, go down the toilet
• (go to Hell): go to Halifax
• (in imperative): get fucked

• go to the devil
• go die in a fire
• go jump in a lake
• go jump off a cliff
• go jump off a building
• to hell in a handbasket