hell for leatherとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

An early reference is from 1888 in "The Gadsbys" by Rudyard Kipling, referring to the effect on the leather of a saddle (or perhaps a crop) of riding a horse as fast as possible. (This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “See talk page for possible earlier use.”)

副詞

hell-for-leather (not comparable)

1. As fast as possible; recklessly fast.

   He rode hell-for-leather to catch up with the stagecoach.

   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Valley of the Shadow—Knowing Good and Evil”, in The Story of the Gadsbys‎:

     Captain Mafflin: Leave him alone. It's not bad enough to croak over. Here, Gaddy, take the chit to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather. It'll do you good. I can't go.

   • 1999 December, Karen Duke, quoting the director of a drug agency, “Containing contradictions: the development of prison drugs policy in England since 1980.”, in Middlesex University Research Repository‎, archived from the original on 21 March 2026:

     Some of the commissioning decisions that they have taken look like they have not paid sufficient regard to the development of services in the community. This hell-for-leather search for abstinence - they thought that they could eradicate the drug problem within prisons by running a few programmes and detox units ... the first tranche of service development was very much based around that.

   • 2019 June 19, “This is Trevor.” (12:40 from the start), in Taskmaster‎, season 8, episode 7, spoken by a contestant (Paul Sinha):

     You see, the temptation is to stick at one. The temptation is to assume that the others will go hell-for-leather trying to accumulate as many pink ladies as possible and eventually have the green egg.

同意語

• like a bat out of hell

関連する語

• hell-bent for leather