ANATHEMA: "a ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity"; ALSO "unpleasant person or thing"

By MsW























1. a person or thing detested or loathed: That subject is anathema to him.

2. a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation or destruction.

3. a formal ecclesiastical curse involving excommunication.

4. any imprecation of divine punishment.

5. a curse; execration.

Word of the Day for Sunday, March 23, 2008

anathema \uh-NATH-uh-muh\, noun:

1. A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication. Hence: Denunciation of anything as accursed.
2. An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.
3. Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by ecclesiastical authority.
4. Any person or thing that is intensely disliked.

The Communists were not prepared to accept any compromises; it was anathema to them that Tibet should have an international personality beyond being a region of China.
-- Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows:A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947
Academies, the argument went, were anathema to creativity.
-- Deborah Solomon, "How to Succeed In Art", New York Times, June 27, 1999
Advertising was anathema to the Internet ethos, they said, and people would never pay for on-line material.
-- Steve Lohr, "The Freewheeling Net Meets the Free Market", New York Times, June 9, 1996

Anathema comes from the Greek word meaning "a thing devoted," especially a thing devoted to evil, hence "a curse," from anatithenai, "to dedicate, to set up," from ana, "up" + tithenai, "to place or put."

Sample Sentences:

There is also anecdotal evidence -- and although such stories may be anathema to hard science, they can provide the basis for research questions.

Quotes:
I have come to realize that Jesse Helms stands for everything in politics that is anathema to me. ~William Weld

Nazi Germany produced some posters that would certainly rank as artistically meritorious; their political content was anathema to most people. ~Jane Alexander

I think it's still hard for me to turn down work if it's really good because for so many years I was so desperate to get a job and couldn't and so it's kind of an anathema for me to turn down work. ~Matt Damon

https://www.wordnik.com/words/anathema


De espaldas al mundo, originally uploaded by Eric Parey.


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