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Discover LudwigThe phrase "a circle of hell" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a particularly difficult or torturous situation, often referencing Dante's Inferno.
Example: "Waiting in that long line felt like being trapped in a circle of hell."
Alternatives: "a hellish ordeal" or "a tormenting experience".
Idiom
Ninth circle of hell.
In Dante's Inferno, the ninth circle of hell is the centre where the worst punishments are found, so it is used idiomatically for something that couldn't get worse.
Exact(17)
Look out for couples in his'n'hers coming soon to a circle of hell near you.
It was a feminist's nightmare, compared by Florence Nightingale to a "circle of hell".
Here is a film that casts upper-crust Rome as a circle of hell, at once beautiful and damned.
— For Tiger Woods, the desert far to the right of the first fairway at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain looked like a circle of hell.
You might even describe its austerely beautiful but intimidating Arctic Circle setting (the movie was filmed on the northernmost tip of Chukotka in extreme northeastern Siberia) as a circle of hell.
If there are two things I'm certain of in politics, it's that Dante should have dedicated a circle of hell entirely to prime minister's questions, and that people hate politicians.
Similar(39)
But the impression throughout is of an author having a grand old time: witness a minor-circle-of-hell-league nightclub called Life ("After a few drinks Life won't seem so bad"), a co-VP called Death, and an extremely dubious business venture called Myhotswaitress.com (well worth a visit).
Its is, of course, a circle of computer hell unimagined even by Dante or Ricky Gervais, filled with misfits and miserable losers who gawk at Amy as if she were an envoy from an alien species.
But now, with Cartel Land, US director and cinematographer Matthew Heineman captures a new depth –plumbs a further circle of hell – in his vivid portrayal of Mexico's carnage.
Set in the New York City subway — a modern circle of hell — the play centers on two characters: Clay, a middle-class, black intellectual, and Lula, a somewhat loose, blond white woman who eventually does away with Clay and his pretensions and his rage towards his white seductress by violently killing him.
It's a tenth circle of hell.
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