Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a mild oath, a euph. for damn v.; usu. in excls.

1815		Sporting Mag. XLVI. 13: ‘Now drat that Betty’, says one of the washer-women.
1830		J.B. Buckstone Wreck Ashore I iii: It breaks my heart to see you a-going [...] Drat it, such short notice, too.
1831		‘Gallery of 140 Comicalities’ Bell’s Life in London 24 June 1/2: Drot your black carcase!
1838		(con. 1803–5) ‘Boz’ Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi 112: ‘Oh, drat it!’ exclaimed the new-comer.
1843		W.L. Rede Our Village II ii: Drat my old shoes if it ain’t!
1849		W.C. Hall ‘Mike Hooter’s Fight with the “Bar”’ Spirit of the Times 10 Nov. (N.Y.) 452: The bar, drot his pictur! close at their tails.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 405: Drat the file, and drat the bone! This is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard.
1851		‘Thimble Game’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 33: ‘Drot it,’ said he to himself.
1857		T. Hughes Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 19: Mercy! drat the girl.
1862		Hereford Times 3 May 6/3: [from Amer. Humour] Drot them to darnation.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act II: Drat the boy’s imperence!
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 599: Drat, a corruption – if such it can be called – of Dodrot, takes, in the United States, the place of the English Drabbit, which is but rarely heard here.
1876		M.E. Braddon Dead Men’s Shoes III 152: Drat your reformed funerals.
1880		G.R. Sims Three Brass Balls 245: Old Nanny dratted the teacher’s ‘imperence’.
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 22 Jan. 182/2: She’s got my chap too, drat her!
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 162: Drot your poor broken heart.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 22/1: Jane’s lower jaw here fell, and dodging from the room she was heard to say, ‘Oh, drat that! Time enough to bid good morrow to the devil when I see him!’.
1893		‘’Arriet on Labour’ Punch 26 Aug. 88/1: But work-girls work, and that is more than Sam and ’is sort — drat ’em!
1895		Truth (Sydney) 5 May 3/1: Drat your Lithgow elder [...] I suppose he is the same frosted fraud that tried to bounce a wager out of Charley Westbrook.
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 17: Drat and drabbit that young rascal! What’s he a-doing of now?
1911		G. Stratton-Porter Harvester 13: Drat that dog!
1924		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Aug. 17/6: Drat marriage — it has robbed us of our perfect flapper!
1928		R. Hall Well of Loneliness (1976) 102: Drat the boy, what be ’e a-doin’?
1938		W. Watson Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2000) 34: You musn’t mind Nick’s language [...] It’s just like you or me saying ‘Oh bother,’ or ‘drat it’.
1945		G. Fairlie Captain Bulldog Drummond 146: Drat it, thought Drummond, it might have come just a few minutes earlier.
1954		Mad mag. Apr. 4: Drat the day I started working for comic books.
1957		‘Nino Culotta’ They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 165: You drew a blank with me, because of Charlie, drat him.
1968		W.S. Hoffman Loser 101: ‘How is Patricia? She never writes, drat her’.