Green’s Dictionary of Slang

irritating, infuriating.

1834		Western Times 29 Nov. 4: The dratted cat’s at the drippin pan.
1843		W.T. Thompson Major Jones’s Courtship (1872) 48: My nose wasn’t quite well whar I blazed it on that dratted grape-vine.
1845		W.T. Porter Big Bear of Arkansas (1847) 95: It’s that drotted three day agur I cotch’d last fall.
1851		M. Reid Scalp-Hunters I 304: What’s the dratted rumpus?
1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 266: Yu dratted stingy hog, yu.
1875		Hartford Herald (KY) 27 Jan. n.p.: Git her up sniptious [...] None of your dratted one-horse fixins for me.
1895		Edgefield Advertiser (SC) 29 May 2/2: Umph you needn’t try to be so drotted smart about it.
1900		J. Conrad Lord Jim 17: I wish to ask you respectfully – respectfully, mind – who wouldn’t chuck a dratted job like this?
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 17: It’s time that dratted boy did something for a living.
1923		C.B. Poultney Mrs. ’Arris 208: I got a cold in me face in some way watching that dratted display.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 124: Maybe, if I don’t mention that dratted necklace ...
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 12: That dratted girl has gone and made two pies again, to save herself trouble.
1953		H. Kurtzman Inside Mad (2002) 160: Gad! ... even the boats are lost in this dratted pea-soup fog!
1960		(con. c.1918) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 55: As if them dratted things was any good.