(tär-nāˈshən) New England & Southern U.S.
noun The act of damning or the condition of being damned.
interjection Used to express anger or annoyance.
Regional Note: The noun and interjection
tarnation illustrate suffixation, the addition of a suffix to a word.
Tarnation and
darnation (the latter probably having come first) are both euphemistic forms of
damnation. Tarnation seems to have been influenced by
tarnal, another mild oath derived from (
e)
ternal! The
Oxford English Dictionary cites late-18th-century examples of
tarnation from New England, indicating that it has been part of American speech since colonial days.