damned if I know in English

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{
  "etymology_text": "Ellipsis of I'll be damned if I know, alluding to the certainty and affirmation that the one making the statement does not know.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "damfino",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "contraction"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see damned, if, I, know."
      ],
      "id": "en-damned_if_I_know-en-intj-INxin6Uq",
      "links": [
        [
          "damned",
          "damned#English"
        ],
        [
          "if",
          "if#English"
        ],
        [
          "I",
          "I#English"
        ],
        [
          "know",
          "know#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "21 79",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "15 85",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "7 93",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used in response to a question in which the target person absolutely does not know the answer."
      ],
      "id": "en-damned_if_I_know-en-intj--bz86Shf",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hell if I know"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "damned if I know"
}

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{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English interjections",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Ellipsis of I'll be damned if I know, alluding to the certainty and affirmation that the one making the statement does not know.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "damfino",
      "tags": [
        "alternative",
        "contraction"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see damned, if, I, know."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "damned",
          "damned#English"
        ],
        [
          "if",
          "if#English"
        ],
        [
          "I",
          "I#English"
        ],
        [
          "know",
          "know#English"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used in response to a question in which the target person absolutely does not know the answer."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hell if I know"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "damned if I know"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-28 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (1a05e46 and e3d6d4e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"damned if I know" meaning in English

Interjection

Alternative forms