A large, destructive fire or a place characterized by intense heat and flames. Also refers metaphorically to any situation of chaos, destruction, or intense suffering.
From Italian inferno, from Latin infernus meaning 'of the lower regions, hellish,' from inferus 'below.' Popularized by Dante's 'Inferno' (1320), the first part of his Divine Comedy describing hell.
Dante's 'Inferno' gave us not just the word but our entire modern conception of hell as a structured, punitive afterlife with specific punishments for specific sins. The work was so influential that many phrases we use today—like 'abandon all hope'—come directly from Dante's Italian text, making 'inferno' a rare case where literature permanently shaped both language and theology.
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