execration

See also: exécration

English

WOTD – 20 April 2017

Etymology

From Latin execrātiō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛksɪˈkɹeɪʃən/
• IPA^(key): /ɛksəˈkɹeɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən
• Hyphenation: ex‧e‧cra‧tion

Noun

execration (countable and uncountable, plural execrations)

1. An act or instance of cursing; a curse dictated by violent feelings of hatred; an imprecation; an expression of utter detestation.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XIII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 220:

     [W]hile all mourned and honoured the dead, thou hast lived to merit our hate and execration—lived to unite thyself with the vile tyrant who murdered thy nearest and dearest— […]

   • 1835 July, [Thomas Babington Macaulay], “Art. I.—History of the Revolution in England in 1688. Comprising a view of the Reign of James the Second, from his Accession, to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange, by the late Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh; and completed to the Settlement of the Crown, by the Editor. To which is prefixed, a Notice of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh. 4to. London: 1834”, in The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume LXI, number CXXIV, Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Company, for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, London; and Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, →OCLC, page 294:

     When some of those brave and honest though misguided men who had sate in judgment on their King were dragged on hurdles to a death of prolonged torture, their last prayers were interrupted by the hisses and execrations of thousands.

   • 1946 April 11, Albert Camus; Stuart Gilbert, transl., part 2, chapter V, in The Stranger, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, OCLC 343192; reprinted New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, June 1967 (12th printing), OCLC 1990040, page 154:

     For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

2. That which is execrated; a detested thing.

Related terms

• execrate
• execrative
• execrator
• execratory

Translations

act or instance of cursing

• Bulgarian: проклятие (bg) n (prokljatie)
• French: exécration (fr) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Georgian: შეჩვენება (šečveneba), დაწყევლა (dac̣q̇evla)
• German: Abscheu (de) m, Fluch (de) m, Verwünschung (de) f

Anagrams

• excreation