damn Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun something of little value
    tinker's dam; tinker's damn; red cent; hoot; darn; shucks; shit.
    • his promise is not worth a damn
    • not worth one red cent
    • not worth shucks
  2. verb wish harm upon; invoke evil upon
    imprecate; curse; anathemise; bedamn; anathemize; maledict; beshrew.
    • The bad witch cursed the child
  3. adjective satellite used as expletives
    goddamn.
    • oh, damn (or goddamn)!
  4. adjective satellite expletives used informally as intensifiers
    darned; goddamned; goddam; goddamn; blessed; blamed; blame; infernal; deuced; damned; blasted.
    • he's a blasted idiot
    • it's a blamed shame
    • a blame cold winter
    • not a blessed dime
    • I'll be damned (or blessed or darned or goddamned) if I'll do any such thing
    • he's a damn (or goddam or goddamned) fool
    • a deuced idiot
    • an infernal nuisance
  5. adverb extremely
    all-fired; bloody.
    • you are bloody right
    • Why are you so all-fired aggressive?

WordNet


Damn transitive verb
Etymology
OE. damnen dapnen (with excrescent p), OF. damner, dampner, F. damner, fr. L. damnare, damnatum, to condemn, fr. damnum damage, a fine, penalty. Cf. Condemn, Damage.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Damned ; present participle & verbal noun Damning
Definitions
  1. To condemn; to declare guilty; to doom; to adjudge to punishment; to sentence; to censhure.
    He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him. Shak.
  2. (Theol.) To doom to punishment in the future world; to consign to perdition; to curse.
  3. To condemn as bad or displeasing, by open expression, as by denuciation, hissing, hooting, etc.
    You are not so arrant a critic as to damn them [the works of modern poets] . . . without hearing. Pope.
    Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer. Pope.
    Damn is sometimes used interjectionally, imperatively, and intensively.
Damn intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To invoke damnation; to curse. 
    "While I inwardly damn." Goldsmith.

Webster 1913