tarnation
English
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
tarnation
- /tɑɹˈneɪʃən/ US
Rhymes with -eɪʃən
Where it comes from
From darnation, influenced by tarnal (from eternal); see darn.
noun tarnations
- The act or process of damnation or reprobation; hell. What in tarnation is going on?
- Someone or something that causes trouble; troublemaker. I would say more, but RADLEY's come up to tell me I must go and meet that tarnation BANCROFT.
interjection
- Used to express anger, irritation, disappointment, annoyance, contempt, etc. "Tarnation! You all right?" "Hell, no, I ain't all right!"
adjective more tarnation · most tarnation
- Bothersome; devilish. Now you go 'long back to the house, Marm Winthrop, and if riding 'longside of a popish priest don't speerit me into the bottomless pit, I'll be blamed if I don't go some day into his church and find out what all that tarnation lingo means.
- Generic intensifier. Some time in the month o' August, I think it wur, I found myself in London wi'out a tarnation cent.
adverb more tarnation · most tarnation
- Very; extremely. ‘Well, one Sunday morning, I took ‘Brown Betsy,’ my old two shooter, and all the dogs, and off I sot for the cane brake in the hollow, over back of Ike Hamberlin’s, the steam doctor’ — for I know’d Ike would be tarnation riley if I kilt a bar any where close to his clearin, and that made me sorter a
Talk about this word "tarnation." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/tarnation. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. tarnation. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/tarnation "tarnation." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/tarnation.Cite this
@misc{tarnation_2026,
title = {tarnation},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/tarnation},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
