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!
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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:
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," she says.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
He annulled her royal title; declared their only child, Elizabeth, illegitimate; and damned her memory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 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
It’s the end of another long day in some damned city or other—they all look about the same from a railroad siding—and the Flying Squadron is preparing to pull out.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
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
They lost, 16-12,They lost, 16-12, but Zebo was outstanding, taking his catches, making his tackles, and doing his damndest to break the gainline.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 9, 2013
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
But inaction is hard to brook, and I thought of Service's lines: Buck up, do your damndest and fight, It's the plugging away that will win you the day.
From The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Sir Douglas Mawson
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
“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
To that moment, he had done his damnedest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2022
“All right,” I said, trying my damnedest to sound like them.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
