dog-gone U.S. slang.
(dɒgˈgɒn, -ˈgɔːn)
Also dog on.
[Generally taken as a deformation of the profane God damn: cf. dang, darn. But some think the original form was dog on it, to be compared with pox on it! etc.; cf. dog n.1 17 j. (See also Sc. Nat. Dict. s.v. dag.)]
A. v. Used imperatively as an imprecation, or exclamation of impatience or the like: ‘hang!’
| 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. xxi, ‘Dog-gone it, man! make haste then!’ 1892 Nation (N.Y.) 21 Apr. 303/3, I think ‘Dog gone it’ is simply ‘Dog on it’. |
B. adj. or pa. pple.
1. = C.
| 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. vii, ‘I'm dog-gone, Jim’, replied the hunter. a 1860 Southern Sketches 33 (Bartlett) No, says I, I won't do no sich dog on thing. 1891 H. Herman His Angel 188 He ain't quite a dog-gone fool. |
2. Also as adv. and quasi-n.
| 1871 E. Eggleston Hoosier Schoolmaster 40 She was so dog-on stuck up. 1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter 95 You was so dog-gone proud of the blue coat. 1933 E. Caldwell God's Little Acre xviii. 266 That will be my ship coming in, and I don't give a dog-gone for the name you call it. Ibid., When I get a load of it, I'll know dog-gone well my ship has come in. |
C. dog-goned adj. or pa. pple.; also dog-gauned, dog-goned, ‘confounded’, ‘darned’.
| a 1860 T. H. Gladstone Englishm. in Kansas 46 (Bartlett) If there's a dog-goned abolitionist aboard this boat, I should like to see him. 1861 Lowell Biglow P. Poems 1890 II. 23. 1868 All Year Round 19 Sept. 353/2 He looks the dogondest cuss ever since Jim Ford left. 1872 E. Eggleston End of World xxiii. 158 Clark township don't want none of 'em, I'll be dog-oned if it do. 1876 Besant & Rice Gold. Butterfly Prol. i. 1879 Tourgee Fool's Err. (1883) 672 I'll be dog-goned if I know what I do believe. 1893 T. Stewart Miners 203 Trade's sae dagont dull. 1908 J. Lumsden Doun i' th' Loudons 244 That dagon'd buffer o' a wife. |