worth a damn
not worth a damn
Having no value or integrity; worthless. The company offered vouchers to its employees, but they aren't worth a damn. You've broken your word so many times that your promises aren't worth a damn. My brother gave me his old laptop, but it's not worth a damn anymore.
worth a damn
Having worth, value, or integrity. Also often used in the negative to indicate the opposite. It's hard to find workers who are worth a damn anymore. You've broken your word so many times that your promises aren't worth a damn. My brother gave me his old laptop, but it's not worth a damn anymore.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
not worth a damn
Inf. worthless. This pen is not worth a damn. When it comes to keeping score, she's not worth a damn.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
not worth a damn
Also, not worth a plugged nickel or red cent or bean or hill of beans or fig or straw or tinker's damn . Worthless, as in That car isn't worth a damn, or My new tennis racket is not worth a plugged nickel. As for the nouns here, a damn or curse is clearly of no great value (also see not give a damn); a plugged nickel in the 1800s referred to a debased five-cent coin; a cent denotes the smallest American coin, which was red when made of pure copper (1800s); a bean has been considered trivial or worthless since the late 1300s (Chaucer so used it), whereas hill of beans alludes to a planting method whereby four or five beans are put in a mound (and still are worthless); and both fig and straw have been items of no worth since about 1400. A tinker's dam, first recorded in 1877, was a wall of dough raised around a spot where a metal pipe is being repaired so as to hold solder in place until it hardens, whereupon the dam is discarded. However, tinker's damn was first recorded in 1839 and probably was merely an intensification of "not worth a damn," rather than having anything to do with the dam.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
not worth a damn
having no value or validity at all. informalFarlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
not worth a damn
mod. worthless. When it comes to keeping score, she’s not worth a damn.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.