Brewer's: Gehenna

(Hebrew, g hard). The place of eternal torment. Strictly speaking, it means simply the Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom), where sacrifices to Moloch were offered and where refuso of all sorts was subsequently cast, for the consumption of which fires were kept constantly burning.

And made his grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of hell.

Milton: Paradise Lost, book i. 403-5.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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