Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a general term of dismissal and dislike.

c.1813		‘Wellington’s Victory’ in Wellington’s Laurels 2: And oft the French frogs cry’d marbiau / They got such a D---able thrashing.
1828		Public Ledger & Dly Advertiser 16 Dec. 3/1: He cried out [...] ‘You too,’ to the mutes, ‘with your damnable faces’.
1833		Cobbett’s Wkly Political Reg. 12 Oct. 1/1: Emigration and ‘Cobbett’s Damnable Doctrine’.
1844		Northern Star (Leeds) 6 Apr. 4/6: Let every shop of workmen when petitioning for the rejection of the damnable atrocity, petition also for [...] the ten Hours Bill.
1850		Roscommon Messenger 2 Nov. 4/4: Irish civilization, which only erupts in an occasional retaliatory petty murder, is respectable alongsie of this downright, damnable and cold-blooded villainy.
1864		Dunfermline Press 3 Feb. 1/5: Dr Knight had been in the same class with Lord Byron [...] ‘He had the most damnable disposition’.
1872		Western Times 6 Aug. 5/5: Europe was at present ‘sunk and swallowed up in one abominable and damnable cess-pool of fetid lies’.
1886		M.E. Braddon Mohawks II 116: If I could believe, Herrick – but it is that damnable if which wrecks us.
1890		The Sporting Times 1 Feb. 1/1: Shockin’? I ca’ ’t fair damnable.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 171: Strictly honest, also, I think—only for his d---nable disposition.
1918		‘Sapper’ The Human Touch 9: Each little group obsessed, with that one damnable idea – Dear God! but it’s over; he’s going back again.
1921		A.A. Milne Dover Road in Three Plays (1922) Act I: Well, of all the damnable things to say —.
1934		D.L. Sayers The Nine Tailors (1984) 265: It’s a damnable business, the whole thing.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 173: She had that damnable habit of producing female children.
1999		Observer mag. 11 July 28: Buy a new damp-course for the damnable house.