DARN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does darn mean? 

• DARN (noun)
  The noun DARN has 2 senses:

1. something of little value

2. sewing that repairs a worn or torn hole (especially in a garment)

  Familiarity information: DARN used as a noun is rare.

• DARN (verb)
  The verb DARN has 1 sense:

1. repair by sewing

  Familiarity information: DARN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DARN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Something of little value

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

damn; darn; hoot; red cent; shit; shucks; tinker's dam; tinker's damn

Context example:

not worth shucks

Hypernyms ("darn" is a kind of...):

ineptitude; worthlessness (having no qualities that would render it valuable or useful)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Sewing that repairs a worn or torn hole (especially in a garment)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

darn; mend; patch

Context example:

her stockings had several mends

Hypernyms ("darn" is a kind of...):

sewing; stitchery (needlework on which you are working with needle and thread)

• DARN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they darn    ... he / she / it darns   
Past simple: darned   
Past participle: darned   
-ing form: darning   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Repair by sewing

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

darn socks

Hypernyms (to "darn" is one way to...):

bushel; doctor; fix; furbish up; mend; repair; restore; touch on (restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken)

"Darn" entails doing...:

run up; sew; sew together; stitch (fasten by sewing; do needlework)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

darner (a person who mends by darning)

darning (the act of mending a hole in a garment with crossing threads)

 Context examples 

Now that the mining had ceased, Edith Nelson turned over the fire-building and the dish-washing to the men, while she darned their socks and mended their clothes.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

"It's darn good coffee," Henry said enticingly.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The German gentlemen embroider, I know, but darning hose is another thing and not so pretty.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been that Peggotty was always darning, or where such an unfailing supply of stockings in want of darning can have come from.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

If Peggotty were looking for a hole, all of a sudden, in the heel of that stocking, it must have been a very little one indeed, and not worth darning.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He used to suck my finger regular, the darn little cuss—that finger right there! And Skiff Miller, too overwrought for speech, held up a fore finger for them to see.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It flew open, and there he stood in his dressing gown, with a big blue sock on one hand and a darning needle in the other.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"The darned cuss."

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Peggotty darned away at a stocking as long as she could see, and then sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove, and her needle in her right, ready to take another stitch whenever there was a blaze.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)