Goddammit

Part of speech: interjection

Definitions

1. An oath expressing anger, annoyance, or exasperation at someone or something
2. A curse used to convey strong irritation or dismay in response to an unwelcome situation
3. An emphatic exclamation of frustration or displeasure uttered when something goes wrong

Etymology: "Goddammit" is a contraction of "God damn it", an exclamation built from the oath "God damn" with the pronoun "it" tacked on at the end. The phrase works like many other expletives in English, where a curse on something is turned into a bare shout of frustration. The "damn" in it comes from the Old French "dampner", ultimately from Latin "damnare", meaning to condemn, so the words are literally a call for divine condemnation delivered in anger. The fused spelling is the modern result of that phrase being spoken quickly until its parts ran together. The word is a compound of existing English words with no coinage behind it, so there is no single inventor or first-use story to tell. Its force comes from the older sense of "damn" as a condemnation, which has faded in everyday speech until the expression reads as simple irritation.

Synonyms: goddamn, dammit, hell