Idiom
hell if I know
Meaning
Synonym of I don't know.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Where are my keys? Hell if I know.”
“He asked me why the train was delayed, but hell if I know.”
“When the inspector demanded to know who had left the gate unlocked, the guard simply shrugged and said, hell if I know.”
Examples
simple
“Where are my keys? Hell if I know.”
contextual
“He asked me why the train was delayed, but hell if I know.”
complex
“When the inspector demanded to know who had left the gate unlocked, the guard simply shrugged and said, hell if I know.”
Origin
The idiom likely developed as an ellipsis of the earlier the hell if I know, which was itself derived from the construction to hell if I know. The source material provides no dates or named entities for the evolution of the phrase.
Key words
Related idioms
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