Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

give a damn

 
Idioms: not give a damn
 

Also, 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.


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
 
WordNet: give a damn
Top
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The verb has one meaning:

Meaning #1: show no concern or interest; always used in the negative
  Synonyms: care a hang, give a hoot


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Idioms. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more

 

Mentioned in