hell-bent for leather
advEtymology
Apparently a blend of hell-bent + hell-for-leather, though sometimes said to have been initially applied to animals which behaved poorly as if they were bent on being turned into leather.
Definitions
determinedly recklessly, in a manner that lacks restraint.
- [...] his Supply Officer was hell bent for leather to torpedo his tour as the Commanding Officer and wanted explanations, or at least reassurances.
- She had been through several programs, to no avail; nothing worked, she was hell-bent for leather, she was intent on hurting herself.
Synonym of hell-for-leather (“very fast”).
- “Gosh!” said Marking. “Where the hell did the Japs get that? [...Was that] a Jap plane? God damn, it was fast.” And I agreed, “It was hell-bent for leather some place.”
Synonym of hell-bent (“(recklessly) determined”).
- It had been quite some piece of road from an eastern region of Arizona to SOD, but Jethro was hell-bent for leather. His desire for a meeting with Zelda Klemp had taken him over. He'd been driving since late the previous night ...
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for hell-bent for leather. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA