not give a damn

Idioms  

1. Also,. Not care about, be indifferent to, as in I don't give a damn about him, or She doesn't give a fig if he comes or not. The nouns in all these terms signify something totally worthless. Although probably in oral use for much longer, damn is first recorded in this negative form in the late 1700s and the worthless item it is used to denigrate is a curse. Fig has denoted something small and worthless since about 1400, and hang since the mid-1800s; hoot has been used for the smallest particle since the later 1800s; rap, also for the smallest particle, since the first half of the 1800s, and shit, for excrement, since about 1920. All but the first of these terms are colloquial and the last (using shit) is vulgar.

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Example Sentences

Temperamentally, I do not give a damn what my neighbors own; I have zero envy.

From MarketWatch • May 13, 2026

“I’m not going to go on the air and not give a damn about how Disney feels about something. I’m not irresponsible. But I am my own man.”

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 6, 2024

“It does not give a damn about whether you are the queen or a king or a normal civilian, a person in high power — you are getting it.”

From New York Times • Feb. 20, 2022

Hicks and others, not to put too fine a point on it, did not give a damn about the law.

From Washington Post • Jul. 8, 2019

Yossarian did not give a damn whether he hit the target or not, just as long as Havermeyer or one of the other lead bombardiers did and they never had to go back.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller