curse

curse n Curse, imprecation, malediction, anathema are comparable when they denote a denunciation that conveys a wish or threat of evil.

Curse (opposed to blessing)usually implies a call upon God or a supernatural power to visit punishment or disaster upon a person; in dignified use it commonly presupposes a profound sense of injury and a plea to a divine avenger for justice. No other word in this group suggests so strongly the certainty of the threatened evil

{

the untented woundings of a father's curse pierce every sense about thee!— Shak.

}

{

an orphan's curse would drag to hell a spirit from on high— Coleridge

}

Imprecation also implies an invocation of evil or calamity, but it often suggests as its provocation wrath rather than a sense of injury and a desire for revenge rather than for justice as its aim

{

with imprecations thus he filled the air, and angry Neptune heard the unrighteous prayer— Pope

}

Both curse and imprecation are applied to profane swearing involving blasphemy, but, again, the latter is the weaker in its implications.

Malediction (opposed to benediction) is applied chiefly to bitter reproaches or denunciations publicly proclaimed and bringing disgrace or ignominy to their object

{

my name ... to all posterity may stand defamed, with malediction mentioned— Milton

}

{

Cleopatra has long ago passed beyond the libels with which her reputation was blackened by a terrified Romeeven the maledictions of great poets— Buchan

}

{

a passage in one of the recently discovered Ras Shamra poems . . . pronounces a malediction . . . "may Horon break thy head"— Mercer

}

Anathema basically denotes a solemn authoritative ecclesiastical ban or curse accompanied by excommunication

{

the third letter to Nestorias . . . contained the anathemas— R. M. French

}

In more general use the term applies to a strong or violent denunciation by one in authority or in a position to judge of something as grossly wrong, as productive of evil, or as accursed

{

the Pope . . . has condemned the slave trade —but no more heed is paid to his anathema than to the passing wind— Gladstone

}

{

continued openly ... to flaunt their beauties, in spite of the anathemas from the pulpits— Wellman

}

or it may be used in a much weakened sense to mean no more than a vigorous denunciation

{

no anathema pronounced by any psychologist against such words as "purpose" will exorcise this initiative as a distinctive and observable character of certain modes of conscious doing— C. I. Lewis

}

{

[people] of self-respect who would like to teach our children ... are afraid to hire themselves out to communities and states . . . where they may be under the continuous censorship of politicians, petty moralists, and those businessmen for whom the mere subscription to a liberal journal is a reason for anathema— Ulich

}

Analogous words: execration, objurgation (see corresponding verbs at EXECRATE): profanity, *blasphemy, swearing

Antonyms: blessing

curse vb damn, anathematize, *execrate, objurgate

Analogous words: condemn, denounce, reprobate (see CRITICIZE): blaspheme, swear (see corresponding nouns at BLASPHEMY)

Antonyms: bless