darn
verb /dɑːn/
/dɑːrn/
[transitive, intransitive]Verb Forms
Idioms | present simple I / you / we / they darn | /dɑːn/ /dɑːrn/ |
| he / she / it darns | /dɑːnz/ /dɑːrnz/ |
| past simple darned | /dɑːnd/ /dɑːrnd/ |
| past participle darned | /dɑːnd/ /dɑːrnd/ |
| -ing form darning | /ˈdɑːnɪŋ/ /ˈdɑːrnɪŋ/ |
- darn (something) to repair a hole in a piece of clothing by sewing stitches across the hole
- to darn socks
Oxford Collocations DictionaryDarn is used with these nouns as the object:- sock
Word Originverb early 17th cent.: perhaps from dialect dern ‘to hide’, which is from Old English diernan, of West Germanic origin; compare with Middle Dutch dernen ‘stop holes in (a dyke)’.
Idioms
darn it!
- (informal, especially North American English) used as a mild swear word to show that you are angry or annoyed about something, to avoid saying ‘damn’
- Darn it! I've lost my keys!
I’ll be darned!
- (informal, especially North American English) used to show that you are surprised about something
- Well, I’ll be darned! They knew about it all the time!