Dictionary

damnably en · ADV

Pronunciation

• /ˈdæmnəbli/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English dampnablely; equivalent to damnable + -ly.

Meanings

1. In a damnable manner.
   • The people were in hopes he had killed the lawyers, and were damnably disappointed when they found he had only broke the leg o' the one, and the back of the other. 1759, Charles Macklin, Love a la Mode, act II:
   • The young man was so damnably full of his experiences, so eager to compare one thing with another, so insistent upon foreign places and changes in England and what we'd all got to do about it. 1918, Hugh Walpole, The Green Mirror, New York: George H. Doran, Book I, Chapter VI, p. 109:
   • And in his male spirit he felt himself hating her: hating her deeply, damnably. 1918–1921 (date written), D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Aaron’s Rod, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, published April 1922, →OCLC:
   • They had just got me on to the stretcher when my paralysed right arm came to life and began hurting damnably. 1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XII, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC:
   • By the way: my dressing-gown smells most damnably of benzine. 1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act II, page 132:
   • I haue miſ-vs'd the Kings Preſſe damnably. c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 67:
   • But I am blabbing damnably; come, tell me one little bit of the story, and I shall tell you the rest. 1826, Allan Cunningham, chapter V, in Paul Jones, volume II, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, page 145:

Forms

Translations (1)

eo damninde (in a damnable manner)