Green’s Dictionary of Slang

doggone adj.

also daggone, daggoned, doggon, dog(g)ondest, dog-(g)oned, doggoned, dog-hanged, dog on

(US) a euph. for god-damn adj.

[US] ‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 69: She didn’t care a dog on bit for all the sarpints that ever cum er ’long.
[UK]T.H. Gladstone Englishman in Kansas 47: If there’s a doggauned Abolitionist aboard, I should like to see him, that I should. I’m the man to put a chunk o’ lead into his woolly head, right off; yes, sir, that’s what I’ll do.
[Aus]Argus (Melbourne) 30 Apr. 4/6: [A] glossary is sometimes necessary to enable English readers to comprehend [...] American journals ! What, for example, is the meaning of ‘dod-derned’ and ‘dog-gone’.
Sugar Planter (W. Baton Rouge, LA) 21 Sept. 4/1: Now see heah, stranger, yeh’ve bin fooled the dogondest.
[US] ‘South-Western Sl.’ in Overland Monthly (CA) Aug. 130: Neither of them will [...] fall into an ‘almighty fix,’ though he might get into a ‘dog-oned fixment’.
[US]E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 130: I [...] lost my leg by one of em stickin’ his dog-on’d bagonet right through it.
[US]Schele De Vere Americanisms 597: Doggone [...] is also, in all probability; original with us, and mainly used in the South.
[UK]Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly I 17: Since I’ve been in this doggoned country I’ve had one or two near things.
[US]San Marcos Free Press (TX) 8 Mar. 6/4: You live in a mighty bad town. This is a doggon bad town, stranger.
[US]J. Miller Memorie and Rime 120: Yes, biggest country, richest country and dogondest healthiest country this side of jericho!
[US]Yorkville Enquirer (SC) 17 May 4/1: Look, yer dod gast, yer essenshully dog-goned, dod-busted, white-livered impudence — you skip.
[UK]Manchester Courier 16 June 10/2: I’d like to see any doggoned Chicago bulldozer get ahead of me that way.
[US]S. Crane Red Badge of Courage (1964) 107: You always talk like a dog-hanged parson.
[US]S.F. Call 11 Feb. 8/5: ‘Well, I be dog-hanged,’ he frequently said.
[UK]Marvel XV:373 Jan. 7: Give him sech a dog-gone busted larrupin’ as’ll last him fer ten years!
[US]H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 303: Doggonedest place you ever see.
[US]O. Johnson Varmint 365: ‘Doggone robbers!’ said the Millionaire Baby tearfully.
[US]P. Kyne Cappy Ricks 316: Not a dog-goned bit!
[US]N. Putnam West Broadway 126: I’ll be dog-goned if in three minutes we wasn’t chewing the rag like old friends.
[US]P.A. Rollins Cowboy 192: Pete, you dog-goned, inflated, lost soul, let out that wind.
[US]Victoria Spivey ‘Dope Head Blues’ 🎵 I bit a dog last Monday / And forty doggone dogs went mad.
[US]M. Fulcher ‘Believe Me’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 1 Sept. 13/3: It’s the dawggone sensitiveness [...] that West Indians feel.
[US]W.M. Raine Cool Customer 184: You’re the doggondest idiot I ever did meet.
[US](con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 44: ‘Well, that doggone ornery kid!’ he said warmly.
[US]L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 25: You spent the whole doggone game in our backfield.
[UK]T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 74: [US speaker] ‘Let’s blow our doggone heads off!’.
[US]T.B. Haber ‘Canine Terms Applied to Human Beings’ in AS XL:2 85: doggonedest. An intensive of doggoned, as a term of reprobation.
[US]Otis Redding & Carla Thomas ‘Tramp’ 🎵 Well, I tell one dog-gone thing. It makes me feel good to know one thing. I know I’m a lover.
[US]O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 158: I know the daggoned thing probably starts at eight thirty.
[UK]T. Rhone Old Story Time Ii v: One of my workmen phone her up, threaten to kill me if I don’t pay him his doggone money‘Just one doggone second, please’.
[Ire]F. Mac Anna Last of the High Kings 49: ‘Doggoned varmint,’ he said as he spat teeth and blood onto the floor.
[Ire](con. 1960s) G. Byrne Pictures in my Head 30: I have [...] galloped up Bunting Road dar-darring at any doggone gunslingin’ critter who crossed my path.
[US]L. Pettiway Honey, Honey, Miss Thang 262: Look at you. Like a daggone ant, you go crawling in the bed.
[US]‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 161: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Doggone.
[US]L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] ‘Just one doggone second, please’.