execrate

American  

[ek-si-kreyt] / ˈɛk sɪˌkreɪt /

verb (used with object)

execrated, execrating

1. to detest utterly; abhor; abominate.

2. to curse; imprecate evil upon; damn; denounce.

   He execrated all who opposed him.

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verb (used without object)

execrated, execrating

1. to utter curses.

execrate British  

/ ˈɛksɪˌkreɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to loathe; detest; abhor

2. (tr) to profess great abhorrence for; denounce; deplore

3. to curse (a person or thing); damn

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Other Word Forms

• execration noun
• execrative adjective
• execratively adverb
• execrator noun
• unexecrated adjective

Etymology

Origin of execrate

1555–65; < Latin ex ( s ) ecrātus (past participle of ex ( s ) ecrārī to curse), equivalent to ex- ex- ¹ + secr- (combining form of sacrāre to consecrate; sacrament ) + -ātus -ate ¹

Explanation

Just when you thought you knew every word in the book for hate, here's a new one: execrate. The word means to despise or also to curse. Broken down to its Latin root, the word execrate means the opposite of being sacred or devoted to. When you execrate something, you are cursing it instead of making it holy. The word is not used all that often. If you say to someone, "I execrate you!" they might think you're casting an evil spell on them. Which in a way, by cursing them, you are.

Example Sentences

The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Then there would be one continual cheering all along as they passed, and all the women would cry, and the men would execrate Napoleon.

From Music-Study in Germany from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay by Fay, Amy

Why do we execrate in one set of men, what we laud so highly in another?

From An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans by Child, Lydia Maria Francis

At times he would burst out into a paroxysm of passion, and execrate collectively and individually the whole body of the Manchester League, who had sent him upon this unfortunate mission to Paris.

From Tales from Blackwood Volume 5 by Various

Will they not execrate the memory of those ancestors, who, having it in their power to avert evil, have, like their first parents, entailed a curse upon all future generations?

From Dissertation on Slavery With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia by Tucker, St. George