Perdition refers to hell, or to the state of being in hell forever as punishment after death—in other words, damnation. It is usually used figuratively.

// Dante’s Inferno details the main character’s journey through perdition.

// It’s this kind of selfishness that leads down the road to perdition.

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“AC/DC has been criticized for sticking to its straightforward musical formula for more than 50 staggering years, but there’s little denying the appeal of the group’s adrenalized and reliable approach. As Angus Young stated in the liner notes for a reissue of ‘The Razor’s Edge,’ ‘AC/DC equals power. That’s the basic idea.’ That energetic jolt is sometimes the perfect means to raise spirits and spread actual joy, even coming from a band offering the cartoonish imagery of plastic horns and travel down the road to perdition.” — Jeff Elbel, The Chicago Sun-Times, 25 May 2025

Perdition is a word that gives a darn, and then some. It was borrowed into English in the 14th century from the Anglo-French noun perdiciun and ultimately comes from the Latin verb perdere, meaning “to destroy.” Among the earliest meanings of perdition was, appropriately, “utter destruction,” as when Shakespeare wrote of the “perdition of the Turkish fleet” in Othello. This sense, while itself not utterly destroyed, doesn’t see much use anymore; perdition is today used almost exclusively for eternal damnation or the place where such destruction of the soul occurs.