anathema
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Placing an anathema -- in earlier times the curse of excommunication and death, not just a vehement curse -- upon those who damage or steal books can be traced back at least 28 centuries.
View all »Definitions (14)
American Heritage Dictionary (4)
- noun A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.
- noun A vehement denunciation; a curse: "the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Nathaniel Hawthorne).
- noun One that is cursed or damned.
Century Dictionary (7)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet (2)
Elsewhere on the web
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- A sufficient number of commentaries were not wanting upon the consequences of such an anathema, the laws of the state, and the power and displeasure of the government: but the grief of his wife, who was pregnant, and the thoughts of his family and friends, had far more effect upon M. de Lafayette. — Memoirs Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette
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Placing an anathema -- in earlier times the curse of excommunication and death, not just a vehement curse -- upon those who damage or steal books can be traced back at least 28 centuries.
— VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol X No 3 - I queried the Oracle how I might regain my place in my society without performing anathema, and the Oracle told me 'Culti - vate blue.' — Split Infinity
- Cato in the teeth of an explicit presbyterial anathema, and again in the same year â” in the month of August â” the boys of the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy, which Smith was at the time attending, enacted the piece their master had written. — Life of Adam Smith
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The Patriarch immediately issued orders to his clergy, to see that the temporal penalties threatened in the anathema were all inflicted.
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I.
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View all »Etymologies (4)
American Heritage Dictionary (1)
- Late Latin anathema, doomed offering, accursed thing, from Greek, from anatithenai, anathe-, to dedicate : ana-, ana- + tithenai, to put; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.
Century Dictionary (2)
GNU Webster's 1913 (1)
WordNet
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Pronunciations
/ (ə-năthˈə-mə)/
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