I'll be damned

intj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"i-ll-be-damned" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“I'll be damned” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An expression of surprise.

Corpus desk

Index EN-i-ll-be-damned · I'll be damned · English

I'll be damned · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "I" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for I'll be damned
PropertyValue
HeadwordI'll be damned
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechInterjection
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “I'll be damned” in English

I'll be damnedranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

I'll be damned is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for I'll be damned, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is I'll be damned, spelled I-'-L-L- -B-E- -D-A-M-N-E-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    An expression of surprise.
  2. 2
    A vehement asseveration that one will not permit some specified thing to happen.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how I'll be damned appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. I'll be damned if I'm having a thief like him stay in my house.
  2. My mechanisms / Of defense are down / And my resistance / Is out on the town / I was alarmed by your attack / This isn't a boxing match / But I'll be damned if I ever let you win

Synonyms

I'll be § Related termswow

This word in other languages

Dieu me damne(Français)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "I'll be damned"?
"I'll be damned" is spelled I-'-L-L- -B-E- -D-A-M-N-E-D.
What does "I'll be damned" mean?
As an interjection, "I'll be damned" means: An expression of surprise.
What language does "I'll be damned" come from?
"I'll be damned" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list