MN Idiom
damn it
damned if you do and damned if you don't
give a damn/shit
the fifth column
can I live damn
damn all
damn right
damn straight
you damn skippy
damn with faint praise
Idiom(s): damn sb or sth with faint praiseTheme: CRITICISM
to criticize someone or something indirectly by not praising enthusiastically.
• The critic did not say that he disliked the play, but he damned it with faint praise.
• Mrs. Brown is very proud of her son's achievements, but damns her daughter's with faint praise.
Fifth columnist
(UK) A fifth columnist is a member of a subversive organisation who tries to help an enemy invade.Man on the Clapham omnibus
(UK) The man on the Clapham omnibus is the ordinary person in the street.Sing from the same hymn sheet
If people are singing from the same hymn sheet, they are expressing the same opinions in public.Smoke like a chimney
Someone who smokes very heavily smokes like a chimney.damned if one does, damned if one doesn't|damn
adj. phr. No matter what one does, someone is likely to criticize one. No matter what decisions I make, there are always some people who will approve them and those who won't. It is a classical case of "damned if I do, damned if I don't."fifth column|column|fifth
n. phr. A group or organization within a country that works to bring about the country's downfall, usually through acts of espionage and sabotage. The Communist party in the United States was considered by Senator McCarthy to be the Soviet Union's fifth column.one damn thing after another|ODTAA|damn thing|one
(pronounced owed-tay) n. phr. If there is one problem, there will be more. First I lost my wallet, then a kid broke the window, and, lastly, my car refused to start. It was just one damn thing after another!Compare: IF IT'S NOT ONE THING IT'S ANOTHER.
smoke like a chimney|chimney|like a chimney|smoke
v. phr., informal To smoke very heavily and continuously. "If you continue smoking like a chimney" the doctor told my uncle, "you'll wind up in the hospital with lung cancer."damn
damnIn addition to the idioms beginning with damn, also see do one's best; give a damn; not worth a damn.
* * *
- damn well
- damn with faint praise
- damned if I do, damned if I don't
damn well
damn wellAlso, damned well. Certainly, without doubt; emphatically. For example, You damn well better improve your grades, or I know damned well that he's leaving me out. The damn in this phrase is mainly an intensifier.
damned
damned1.
do one's damnedest (or damndest)
Informal to do or try one's utmost
2.
the damned
Theol. souls doomed to eternal punishment
damned if I do, damned if I don't
damned if I do, damned if I don'tA situation in which one can't win. For example, If I invite Aunt Jane, Mother will be angry, and if I don't, I lose Jane's friendship—I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Eric Partridge suggested this idiom may have come from the emphatic I'm damned if I do, meaning “I definitely will not do something,” but despite the similar wording the quite different meaning argues against this theory. [Colloquial; first half of 1900s] Also see Catch-22.
fifth column
fifth columnA secret subversive group that works against a country or organization from the inside, as in The government feared that there was a fifth column working to oppose its policies during the crisis. This term was invented by General Emilio Mola during the Spanish Civil War in a radio broadcast on October 16, 1936, in which he said that he had una quinta columna (“a fifth column”) of sympathizers for General Franco among the Republicans holding the city of Madrid, and it would join his four columns of troops when they attacked. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway and later extended to any traitorous insiders.
give a damn
give a damnsee not give a damn.
not give a damn
not give a damnAlso, not give a fig or hang or hoot or rap or shit. Not care about, be indifferent to, as in I don't give a damn about him, or She doesn't give a fig if he comes or not. The nouns in all these terms signify something totally worthless. Although probably in oral use for much longer, damn is first recorded in this negative form in the late 1700s and the worthless item it is used to denigrate is a curse. Fig has denoted something small and worthless since about 1400, and hang since the mid-1800s; hoot has been used for the smallest particle since the later 1800s; rap, also for the smallest particle, since the first half of the 1800s, and shit, for excrement, since about 1920. All but the first of these terms are colloquial and the last (using shit) is vulgar.
not worth a damn
not worth a damnAlso, not worth a plugged nickel or red cent or bean or hill of beans or fig or straw or tinker's damn. Worthless, as in That car isn't worth a damn, or My new tennis racket is not worth a plugged nickel. As for the nouns here, a damn or curse is clearly of no great value (also see not give a damn); a plugged nickel in the 1800s referred to a debased five-cent coin; a cent denotes the smallest American coin, which was red when made of pure copper (1800s); a bean has been considered trivial or worthless since the late 1300s (Chaucer so used it), whereas hill of beans alludes to a planting method whereby four or five beans are put in a mound (and still are worthless); and both fig and straw have been items of no worth since about 1400. A tinker's dam, first recorded in 1877, was a wall of dough raised around a spot where a metal pipe is being repaired so as to hold solder in place until it hardens, whereupon the dam is discarded. However, tinker's damn was first recorded in 1839 and probably was merely an intensification of “not worth a damn,” rather than having anything to do with the dam.
omnipotent
omnipotentthe Omnipotent
God
omniscient
omniscientthe Omniscient
God
An MN idiom dictionary is a great resource for writers, students, and anyone looking to expand their vocabulary. It contains a list of words with similar meanings with MN, allowing users to choose the best word for their specific context.
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