A modification of Hell-fired.
1756. He is a h-ll-fired good creature.—W. Tolderoy, ‘Two Orphans.’ (N.E.D.)
1833. See what a hell-fired noise the watch makes!—John Neal, ‘The Down-Easters,’ i. 79.
1835. His boss gin him a most all-fired cut with a horsewhip.—Boston Pearl, Nov. 28.
1837. Star’s an all-fired good ox—he’ll draw more’n any two oxen in town.—Yale Lit. Mag., ii. 149 (Feb.).
1845. The doctor ’ll charge an all-fired price to cure me, I s’spect.—Knickerbocker Mag., xxvi. 182 (Aug.).
1847. I was so all-fired blowed that I hadn’t wind enough left to laugh.—‘The Great Kalamazoo Hunt,’ p. 50 (Phila.).
1848. The whole town, agog, came flocking to the inn to see ‘the man who had got the all-fired big nose!’—Knick. Mag., xxxi. 339 (April).
1848. The fust thing I know’d I got a most alfired skeer, that made me jump clear off the side-walk into the street, before I know’d what I was about.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 63 (Phila.).
1850. If, then, you provoke me to it; if we come fairly to blows,—I must be plain with you, and use plain words,—you will got all-firedly licked;—take note, take note!—S. Judd, ‘Richard Edney,’ p. 108 (Boston).
1852. In my opinion, Dan Baxter would make an all-fired good deacon!—Knick. Mag., xl. 181 (Aug.).
1855. Here is the all-firedest fence yet.—Weekly Oregonian, June 30.
1856. You may think I’m a sucker; but I’ve used them things enough in the mines to know that that ’ere all-fired machine is not “hydrollicks.”—San Francisco Call, Dec. 5.
1857. You pitiful catamaran, you ’re too all-fired mean to kill.—Knick. Mag., l. 36 (July).
1861. I don’t mind tellin’ ye about a golfired rumpus I got into down in Salsbury.—Orpheus C. Kerr, Letter 2.
1866. O, Sall, did you ever see such an allfired sight of shoes?—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 289.
1872. I ordered them clothes-pins myself; and I have burnt every one of ’em in that there stove, just because you were too all-fired lazy to get a stick of wood.—J. M. Bailey, ‘Folks in Danbury,’ p. 80.
1885. I’m Abel Doolittle, that’s who I am; an’ ef I hadn’t the al-firedest nicest farm in all these parts afore your bummers come along, I’ll swell up an’ sneeze. An’ ef you don’t see me righted, w’en this blasted war is ended, you’ll hear on this, I tell you!—Admiral D. D. Porter, ‘Incidents of the Civil War,’ p. 184 (N.Y.).
See also JO-FIRED.
