damn
verb
Simple meaning
To condemn; to declare guilty.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
damIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdæm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To condemn; to declare guilty; to doom; to adjudge to punishment.
To condemn as unfit, harmful, invalid, immoral or illegal.
To put out of favor; to ruin; to label negatively.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To condemn; to declare guilty; to doom; to adjudge to punishment.
Used this way, damn is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use damn
- “His promise is not worth a damn.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
People who are condemned to eternal punishment.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Something of little value.
Show no concern or interest.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.