![]() In the early 17th century, according to OED citations, “damn” showed up as a noun used “as a profane imprecation”-that is, a curse. The dictionary’s earliest example is from an anonymous religious tract attacking critics of the Anglican hierarchy: “Hang a spawne? drowne it alls one, damne it!” From Pappe With Hatchet (1589), believed written by John Lyly or Thomas Nashe. The OED says the verb “damn” began to be “used profanely” in the late 16th century “in imprecations and exclamations, expressing emphatic objurgation or reprehension of a person or thing, or sometimes merely an outburst of irritation or impatience.” The Legend of Good Women, circa 1385, by Geoffrey Chaucer.Īnd here’s an example for #3: “For hadde God comaundid maydenhede, / Than had he dampnyd weddyng with the dede” ( The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales, circa 1386, by Chaucer). We’ve expanded this OED’s citation for sense #2: “For, sir, hit is no maystrie for a lord / To dampne a man with-oute answere of word” (“For, sire, it is no triumph for a lord / To condemn a man without answering a word”). ![]() ![]() Collected in English Metrical Homilies (1862), edited by John Small. Here’s an OED example for sense #1 from a homily dated at around 1325: “Sain Jon hafd gret pite / That slic a child suld dampned be” (“John the Baptist had great pity / That such a child should be damned”). In Middle English, according to Oxford English Dictionary citations, “damn” had three related meanings: (1) to doom to eternal punishment (2) to pronounce a sentence (3) to denounce or deplore. (In fact, “condemn” ultimately comes from the same Latin source as “damn.”) It wasn’t until the 16th century that “damn” was used profanely.Įnglish borrowed the term from Old French, but the ultimate source is the classical Latin damnāre or dampnāre, meaning to damage or condemn. ![]() Q: What is the origin of the expression “don’t give a damn”? Was it ever expletive free?Ī: Let’s begin with “damn.” When the word showed up in Middle English in the 14th century, “damn” was a verb meaning to condemn. ![]()
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