Word.ws English Dictionary

be damned

be damned phrase: used as an exclamation to express irritation with or reckless disregard of a person or thing.

Phrase

be damned

  1. (mildly, optative, vulgar) Used as an exclamation to express irritation with or reckless disregard of a person or thing.
    • All they care about is profit, the environment be damned.
    • One pull more and you're at the top, and be damned to you.1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Questions about be damned

What does be damned mean?
Be damned means used as an exclamation to express irritation with or reckless disregard of a person or thing.
What part of speech is be damned?
Be damned is a phrase.

Words near be damned in the dictionary

  1. be called
  2. be careful
  3. be careful what you wish for
  4. be cool
  5. be cruel to be kind
  6. be damned
  7. be done with
  8. be down with
  9. be fearful when others are greedy
  10. be friends
  11. be gathered to one's fathers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be damned (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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