ANATHEMA

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does anathema mean? 

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

1. a detested person

2. a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication

  Familiarity information: ANATHEMA used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANATHEMA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A detested person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

anathema; bete noire

Context example:

he is an anathema to me

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

disagreeable person; unpleasant person (a person who is not pleasant or agreeable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

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

condemnation; curse; execration (an appeal to some supernatural power to inflict evil on someone or some group)

Derivation:

anathematize (curse or declare to be evil or anathema or threaten with divine punishment)

 Context examples 

Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)