Hell bent for leather

[powerchisper]

Hello friends :


I'd like to know the meaning for " hell bent for leather".

I understand , of course each word separately.

It's from the Judas Priest song ...


Thanks.

[poli]

strong desire for leather

This may imply a fetish (sado-masochistic or fascist kitsch) involving dressing in leather.

[Perikles]

strong desire for leather

This may imply a fetish (sado-masochistic or fascist kitsch) involving dressing in leather.I don't think it has anything directly to do with leather. It means very determined to get something as quickly as possible, and the 'leather´refers to a horse's saddle. It appears to come from British army jargon originally, then American. An extension of

hellbent adjective empeñado; to be hellbent on something/-ing estar* empeñado en algo/+ inf

[wrholt]

I'm with Perikles: without particular context, I understand "hellbent for leather" as "to be in a hurry, to be in a rush"

[poli]

Thanks. Clearly I never heard this term before.

[powerchisper]

Thanks , thanks...

By the way , Judas Priest are English , and the song seems to be about motorbikes.

Also, they dress in leather ( fetish / sado kind of clothes ) and Rob Halfors was the one who introduced leather clothes in the gay world.

[Gala]

I wouldn't analyze the Judas Priest angle of it.They were just taking an old idiom (that pre-dated the modern concept of leather as kinky fashion) and adding their own connotations to it. They were attracted to the saying because of the words "leather" and "hell."

[poli]

Well, a quick look a Wikipedia indicates the group to be leather obsessed.
Perhaps the song has two meanings: one for speed, the other for leather fetish.

Anyway, the important part of your question in terms of language use is the term hellbent. Hellbent is another way of saying to have strong desire for. It is not an especially common term these days, but you hear it now and then.

[JPablo]

Interesting.

The Free Dictionnary gives this,

hellbent Recklessly dogged or stubbornly determined; resolute, persistent; going at breakneck speed. The term, of American origin, dates from at least 1835. It has spawned the expanded forms hellbent for leather, hellbent for election, and hellbent for breakfast. Hell or hellbent for leather, thought to be originally British but popular on both sides of the Atlantic, has only the second sense of hellbent, i.e., going at tremendous speed. The reference is to riding on horseback, leather referring to the leather of the saddle. The expression is found in Rudyard Kipling’s The Story of the Gadsbys, published in 1888. Hellbent for election is said to have originated in the Maine gubernatorial race of 1840. Hellbent for breakfast, dating from at least 1931, is another expanded form of hellbent; it is used in the second sense only—going at great speed.