Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general intensifier, very, very much, completely.

1599		Jonson Every Man Out of his Humour II i: ’Sheart, what a damn’d witty rogue’s this!
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia I i: Pox on him for a damned godly knave, forsooth!
1693		Congreve Old Bachelor II i: Cursed fortune! this must be the place, this damned unlucky place!
1702		Cibber She Would and She Would Not II i: Let me never see that damn’d ugly Face of thine as long as I live.
1709		S. Centlivre Busy Body Act II: I can but laugh, ha, ha! to think how damn’d mad he’ll be.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 252: And why did I put on this damn’d unlucky dress?
1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 179: Have a good caution that this Master Mug does not cajole you; He is a damned palavering fellow.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 468: He looked d---d gruff.
1786		Proceedings Old Bailey 26 Apr. 596/1: It must be a d---nd strange story, indeed, Simpson, to operate so powerfully upon me.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 20: But soon these bedamn’d sons of bitches / Went off in a damnable hurry.
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 271: May all their schemes have damn’d bad luck.
1816		W.T. Moncrieff All At Coventry I i: ram.: Timothy! Why what brought you to Coventry? tim.: A damn’d slow diligence – a Yorkshire waggon, half the way, and my legs [...] the other.
1824		J. Hogg Justified Sinner 24: One of the competitors chanced to say rashly, in the moment of exultation, ‘That’s a d——d fine blow, George!’.
1830		Bell’s Life in London 21 Feb. 3/2: Oh, I am old — damn’d old.
1830		Memoirs of the Late Capt. Hugh Crow 296: Genman, I give you my mass — he one d—d good fellow.
1838		(con. 1807) ‘Boz’ Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi 139: What a d----d funny fellow!
1856		G.G. Foster N.Y. by Gas-Light (1990) 184: Well, Jack, I don’t want your money, because you are a good fellow, and pretty d---d drunk.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 269: Well, you’re a dom’d good feller.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 31/2: I’ll turn you up. I’ll take d----d good care to stop you.
1867		Cambria Freeman (Edensburg, PA) 17 Oct. 3/2: Ye may be dom’d glad you got him.
1879		C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 140: An’ a d---d hard job I’ll have uv id, for I must have ’em like a new pin.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 80: I have actually fucked her, sir! and fucked her well! and a damned fine poke she is too.
1910		H. Hapgood Types From City Streets 37: A gent is a dammed good man.
1911		G. Bronson-Howard An Enemy to Society 149: If you weren’t so damned common, you’d respect him.
c.1921		Tom Norman Penny Showman 21: Poverty is no disgrace, but I have found it damned inconvenient.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 47: You were damned sore at her.
1944		News of the World 11 June 8: Danny’s taking damned good care that nobody beats him for the outside.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 111: Feeling pretty damned chipper, actually, Wheezy, old thing.

2. (US) precisely, exactly.

1922

P.A. Rollins Cowboy 81: Damn as an innocent adjective had various quizzical shades of meaning. It was, among other things, synonymous [...] with ‘very’ or ‘exactly.’ Thus ‘promptly at one o’clock’ and ‘immediately’ might severally come from a puncher’s lips as ‘at damned one’ and ‘damned now’.