damned
Americanadjective
-
damnedest,
superlative
-
damndest
superlative
-
condemned or doomed, especially to eternal punishment.
the wailing of damned souls.
-
detestable; loathsome.
Get that damned dog out of here!
-
complete; absolute; utter.
a damned nuisance; a damned fool.
-
Informal. extraordinary; amazing.
It was the damnedest thing I'd ever seen.
noun
adverb
idioms
adjective
adverb
-
(intensifier)
a damned good try
a damned liar
I should damned well think so!
-
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:
Not for the first time, it finds itself in no-win situation, damned no matter which course of action it takes in the absence of some negotiated plan.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Hal likens Soldiers & Sailors to Dante’s Inferno, a place where souls are damned to eternally relive their most terrible experiences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
This route brings people together, including me and my car enthusiast friends, who regularly go on these driving excursions — gas prices be damned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026
Worrying about complications before ruling out the possibility that the answer was simple would have been damned foolishness.
From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson
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
Added Vaughn: “If I think I can get the script good enough, then we are making it. We are doing our damndest to make that happen.”
From The Guardian ● Jun. 18, 2015
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
Frank said, "That was the damndest noise I ever heard."
From Deadly City by Paul W. Fairman
No doubt the TikTok amateur detectives would’ve momentarily shifted from true crime to the Chaplin twins, trying their damnedest to debunk what only the sisters could truly understand.
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026
But really, Reijn is doing her damnedest to get a moral rise out of us.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 24, 2024
“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
“All right,” I said, trying my damnedest to sound like them.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
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.
