tarnation

Noun

tarnation (countable and uncountable, plural tarnations)

1. (archaic, regional) The act or process of damnation or reprobation; hell.
   • What in tarnation is going on?
   • I am Offul maazed. Wheer in tarnations es that theer plaguy girl?1901, Alien, Another Woman's Territory, page 311
2. (obsolete) Someone or something that causes trouble; troublemaker.
   • I would say more, but RADLEY's come up to tell me I must go and meet that tarnation BANCROFT.1848, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Mark Lemon, Punch - Volumes 12-15, page 162
   • I felt sort of odd all over, and I hadn't the least notion what could ail me; it warn't a very tedious feeling, though, but it seemed as if I was a dreaming yit, and all about that tarnation little Miss Miles.1854, Ann Sophia Stephens, High Life in New York, page 70

Interjection

1. (archaic) Used to express anger, irritation, disappointment, annoyance, contempt, etc.
   • "Tarnation! You all right?" "Hell, no, I ain't all right!"2002, T. T. Flynn, Prodigal of Death: A Western Quintet, →ISBN, page 41
   • “They contain the precise description of the place where the nuggets are hidden.” “Tarnation! Is that true?"2008, Marlies Bugmann, Karl May, Winnetou III, page 338

Adjective

tarnation (comparative more tarnation, superlative most tarnation)

1. Bothersome; devilish.
   • Now you go 'long back to the house, Marm Winthrop, and if riding 'longside of a popish priest don't speerit me into the bottomless pit, I'll be blamed if I don't go some day into his church and find out what all that tarnation lingo means.1876, The Catholic Record - Volume 11, page 78
   • It started over nothing, and would have come to nothing but for that tarnation liquor.1894, Macmillan's Magazine - Volume 70, page 343
2. Generic intensifier.
   • Some time in the month o' August, I think it wur, I found myself in London wi'out a tarnation cent.1803, The Castle of the Pyrenees; Or, the Wanderer of the Alps.
   • My love the strongest, a tarnation sight.1838, The Old American Comic Almanac

Adverb

tarnation (comparative more tarnation, superlative most tarnation)

1. Very; extremely.
   • ‘Well, one Sunday morning, I took ‘Brown Betsy,’ my old two shooter, and all the dogs, and off I sot for the cane brake in the hollow, over back of Ike Hamberlin’s, the steam doctor’ — for I know’d Ike would be tarnation riley if I kilt a bar any where close to his clearin, and that made me sorter...1849 November 10, The Spirit of the Times, New York, page 542, column 3
   • He was so tarnation black you couldn't see him except in the middle of the day.1855, John Diprose, Diprose's New Sixpenny Comic Song-Book, page 57