not worth a damn

Idioms  

1. Also,. Worthless, as in That car isn't worth a damn, or My new tennis racket is not worth a plugged nickel. As for the nouns here, a damn or curse is clearly of no great value (also see not give a damn); a plugged nickel in the 1800s referred to a debased five-cent coin; a cent denotes the smallest American coin, which was red when made of pure copper (1800s); a bean has been considered trivial or worthless since the late 1300s (Chaucer so used it), whereas hill of beans alludes to a planting method whereby four or five beans are put in a mound (and still are worthless); and both fig and straw have been items of no worth since about 1400. A tinker's dam, first recorded in 1877, was a wall of dough raised around a spot where a metal pipe is being repaired so as to hold solder in place until it hardens, whereupon the dam is discarded. However, tinker's damn was first recorded in 1839 and probably was merely an intensification of “not worth a damn,” rather than having anything to do with the dam.

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Example Sentences

It doesn’t matter how hard you’re working, how smart you think you are, if we don’t win, it’s not worth a damn.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 26, 2016

“Years-old carcasses are not worth a damn, while the ones that have just died, like this one, are valuable,” Wang said.

From Time • Oct. 30, 2014

When Western oilmen remind him that their contracts run into the next century, Tariki replies: "Any concession between a government and a company is not worth a damn if it does not please the people."

From Time Magazine Archive

Coughing, vomiting and experiencing chest pains, Ruby at first received treatment for a virus at the jail, was hospitalized only after he assured Sheriff William Decker that he was feeling "not worth a damn."

From Time Magazine Archive

"Whatever you do, don't be historical; your historical novel is not worth a damn."

From Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Trollope, Anthony