Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a euph. for damned adj.; thus cussedest.

1845		J.J. Hooper Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs (1851) 196: I tried the cussedest ever a feller did to get loose, and couldn’t.
1852		R.G. Porter ‘The Snapping Turtle’ in Southern Journal Monticelo (MS) 13 Mar. 1: I began to study how I should play off upon the cussed rogues.
1854		Nashville Union & American (TN) 18 May 2/3: I’ll be cussed [...] if I will see the wimmin’ folks impos’d on!
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 176/1: They are all as good friends as ever, and mutually agree in laying the blame on the ‘cussed drink’.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 30: ‘Go away, you cussed lazy niggers,’ the old fellow shouted.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 103: Afore I’d work for a cussed three fardens an hour and the cag-mag kind of wittels that you’ve been eating, svelp me if I wouldn’t turn highway robber.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 109: It’s come just as I said [...] through Starlight’s cussed flashiness.
1890		E. Field ‘The Conversazzhyony’ in Little Bk of Western Verse 152: For her sake, he’d whack up every cussid cent he’d got!
1900		Marvel 8 Dec. 27: I ain’t friendly to them cussed Injuns.
1907		R. Service ‘The Spell of the Yukon’ in Songs of a Sourdough 15: No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?) / It’s the cussedest land that I know.
1911		G. Stratton-Porter Harvester 123: Take that cussed money and put it where I’ll never see or hear of it.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 121: I have a hunch that cussed marshal has ideas ’bout me.
1950		A. Christie Murder Is Announced (1958) 51: No, it won’t as is the way of those cussed inventions.
1999		Observer Mag. 13 June 32: Too cussed and weird for all the major publishing and record companies.
2000		Indep. Rev. 6 Jan. 10: The song is a cussed and very funny testament to the against-all-odds endurance of conjugal love.