damn
/dam
/verb [with object]
1 (be damned) (In Christian belief) be condemned by God to suffer eternal punishment in hell: I treated her badly and I’ll be damned to hell for it...
- Those who receive the mark, according to Scripture, are damned to eternal punishment.
- Mephistophilis is one of the angels who conspired with Lucifer and was damned to hell.
- If God was so loving why were people who committed suicide immediately damned to hell.
1.1Be doomed to misfortune or failure: the enterprise was damned...
- Where the substance is glorified in this disc, the style, unfortunately, is damned.
- It was not the country that was damned but the settler who felt in his heart that he was damned.
- This isn't to say the project was damned, but rather the fact that it's more difficult to create a compelling work when it's based on music with no clear emotional ambit.
2Criticize strongly: the book damns her husband...
- One of his friends has recently been publicly damned for his recreational drug habits.
- These, then, are the ‘teenage tearaways’ demonised in sections of the press, and frequently damned by politicians seeking a cheap populist soundbite.
- Despite being damned as ‘failing’ as little as two years ago, the latest inspectors' report said conditions had been turned around by the prison's new governor.
Synonyms
condemn, censure, criticize, attack, denounce, deplore, decry, revile, inveigh against;
blame, chastise, castigate, berate, upbraid, reprimand, rebuke, reprove, reprehend, take to task, find fault with, give someone/something a bad press;
deprecate, disparage
informal slam, hammer, lay into, cane, blast
British informal slate, slag off, have a go at
archaic slash, reprobate
rare excoriate, vituperate, arraign, objurgate, anathematize
2.1Curse (someone or something): she cleared her throat, damning it for its huskiness damn him for making this sound trivial...
- He felt the pain in the shoulder, where the arrow had hit him, and he damned his ship, his fate, the entire curse of his life.
- For one short moment I damned them, damned their eyes, and wished their farm machine a rapid and terminally rusty death.
- Weep, said the illustrious poet, for they are damned until mankind has lived for three several generations, perfectly in harmony, peace and love, without discord.
Synonyms
curse, put a curse on, put the evil eye on, execrate, imprecate, hoodoo;
anathematize, excommunicate;
North American hex
informal put a jinx on, jinx
rare accurse
exclamation informal
Expressing anger or frustration: Damn! I completely forgot!...
- I feel slightly better but my nose is still dripping… damn!
- I just lost today's post because of a Blogger problem - damn!
- Thought it was fine and dandy till it just struck me… damn!
adjective [attributive] informal
Used for emphasis, especially to express anger or frustration: turn that damn thing off! [as submodifier]: don’t be so damn silly!...
- Then, what happened next shocked, angered, and confused him, which is a whole damn lot for a simple guy to be feeling all at once.
- All but two of the candidates have reasons to be damn frustrated.
- What the living hell am I doing in this damn silly job?
Phrases
as near as damn it
—— be damned
damn all
damn someone/thing with faint praise
I'm (or I'll be) damned if
not be worth a damn
not give (or care) a damn
well I'll be (or I'm) damned
Origin
Middle English: from Old French dam(p)ner, from Latin dam(p)nare 'inflict loss on', from damnum 'loss, damage'.
The word damn goes back to Latin damnare ‘to inflict loss on’. Originally to damn someone was to condemn them (a Middle English word from the same root), but associations with being condemned to hell have coloured much of the later history of the word. The desire to avoid profanity led to less offensive alternatives, such as darn, used since the 18th century. The older sense of ‘to condemn’ survives in the phrase to damn with faint praise, which was popularized by the 18th-century poet Alexander Pope in his ‘An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot’.
Rhymes
- have tickets on oneself
- have to hand it to someone
- have to one's name
- have two left feet
- have what it takes
- havey-cavey
- have —— going for one
- have —— to do with
- havildar
- havingness
- having said that
- Havlicek, John
- havoc
- haw
- Hawaii
- Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time
- Hawaiian
- Hawaiian goose
- Hawaiian guitar
- Hawaiian honeycreeper
- Hawaiki
- hawala
- hawaladar
- haweless
- hawfinch