hell gate
nounUK /ˈhɛl ɡeɪt/
Etymology From Middle English helle gate, helle-ȝate, from Old English helleġeat, corresponding to hell + gate.
1
The entrance to hell, seen as an embodiment of evil.
- A Tigre forth out of the wood did rise, / That with fell clawes full of fierce gourmandize, / And greedy mouth wide gaping like hell-gate, / Did runne at Pastorell her to surprize […].1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- And now great deeds / Had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung, / Had not the snaky Sorceress, that sat / Fast by Hell-gate and kept the fatal key, / Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between.1667, John Milton, “Book LI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
1 more example
- Thine loves the same world that mine hates; / Thy heaven doors are my hell gates.c. 1825, William Blake, The Everlasting Gospel: