hell

In various religions, a place of punishment after death. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, hell is a transitory stage in the progress of the soul, but in Christianity and Islam it is eternal (purgatory is transitory). Judaism does not postulate such punishment.

In the Bible, the word ‘hell’ is used to translate Hebrew and Greek words all meaning ‘the place of departed spirits, the abode of the dead’ (see Hades). In medieval Christian theology, hell is the place where unrepentant sinners suffer the torments of the damned, but the 20th-century tendency has been to regard hell as a state of damnation (that is, everlasting banishment from the sight of God) rather than a place.