damned
Americanadjective
-
damnedest,
superlative
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damndest
superlative
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condemned or doomed, especially to eternal punishment.
the wailing of damned souls.
-
detestable; loathsome.
Get that damned dog out of here!
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complete; absolute; utter.
a damned nuisance; a damned fool.
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Informal. extraordinary; amazing.
It was the damnedest thing I'd ever seen.
noun
adverb
idioms
adjective
adverb
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(intensifier)
a damned good try
a damned liar
I should damned well think so!
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used to indicate amazement, disavowal, or refusal (in such phrases as I'll be damned and damned if I care )
Other Word Forms
Adjective Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of damned
First recorded in 1350–1400, damned is from the Middle English word dam(p)ned. See damn, -ed 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Mark Twain said there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. This website contains all three,” Lynn Tramonte, Ohio Immigrant Alliance’s executive director, said in a statement.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026
Nature be damned, tech entrepreneurs like Bryan Johnson are all in on biohacking.
From Barron's ● May 21, 2026
Drake is a rococo master of self-pity, but damned if he doesn’t have a real reason for it this time.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2026
He gave her hand a quick squeeze, rules be damned.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
He rang his boss, the head of the political section: "I said, you know, Jim, this is the damndest thing."
From BBC ● May 6, 2019
Marvel has an extensive catalogue of characters to anoint as the next generation of Avengers; it’s also doing its damndest to make the X-Men cool again.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2019
Neither, it turns out, are Green Day, who do their damndest to avoid anyone seeing their "secret" NME/Radio 1 stage set on Saturday morning.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 26, 2012
One had to do with the other: The simpler the system was, the less the players had to worry about anything but trying their damndest to execute it.
From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2012
Try to make her realise that, whatever may be my faults—my crimes, if it comes to that—I've done my damndest out there to make reparation.
From The Red Planet by William John Locke
He scored 29 points in the fourth quarter, a post-season record that still stands despite future Warriors like Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant trying their damnedest to knock it down.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2025
“We’re doing our damnedest to get this right,” said Steven Siegel, a board member of the Colorado Healing Fund.
From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2023
"It can't achieve strategic surprise but it will try its damnedest to achieve operational and tactical surprise. That will involve concealment, camouflage, deception, misinformation which they used quite successfully last autumn."
From Reuters ● Jun. 14, 2023
“I just think that it’s a really major part of the American contribution to the history of comedy. I like to try my damnedest to keep it alive,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 7, 2022
Sometimes I walk the wall with Ida, who tries her damnedest to draw me into conversation, to no avail.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
