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