scared the hell

What is the meaning of "hell" in this sentence?



"She scared the hell out of me when she stood on the edge of the cliff."

The usage is now idiomatic; a way of saying "extremely scared by someone/something". Think of it this way: you were so afraid that it was as if something inside of you jumped right out of you.

The expression "to scare the [something] out of someone" comes in a wide variety of forms (and my list is by no means exhaustive):

scared the hell
scared the devil
scared the life
scared the daylights
scared the bejeesus
scared the shit

and so forth.

So the meaning is lost?