| 词汇 | hell on wheels |
| 词源 | hell on wheels. Union Pacific Railroad construction gangs in the 1860s lived in boxcars that were pulled along as the line progressed. Traveling and living with these hard-drinking, of- ten violent men were gamblers, prostitutes, and other unsavory characters. The wild congregation assembled in the boxcars suggested the population of hell to settlers, and the transient town was called hell-on-wheels, a colorful term soon applied to any violent, vicious person or lawless place. |
| 随便看 |
英语词源词典收录了13259条英语词源词条，基本涵盖了全部常用英语词汇的起源、历史，是研究英语词汇或通过词源学英语的必备工具。