anathema means A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, often accompanied by excommunication; something denounced as accursed.
anathema is pronounced /əˈnæθəmə/.
Why “anathema” is a great word
Something or someone that is vehemently detested, loathed, or considered utterly unacceptable. From Latin anathema ("a thing accursed or devoted to evil"), from Greek anathema ("a thing devoted, an offering"), originally from anatithenai ("to set up, dedicate"), from ana- ("up") + tithenai ("to place"). Unlike "abomination," which suggests visceral disgust, or "pariah," which denotes a social outcast, anathema is the formal, principled rejection—the absolute contradiction of a cherished creed. It is the heretic's proposition scrawled on the indictment, the name that silences conversation, the idea whose mere articulation feels like a defilement—what was once an offering, now inverted into a sentence of absolute banishment.
noun
- A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, often accompanied by excommunication; something denounced as accursed.
- Something which is vehemently disliked by somebody.“Even three years ago, the thought of spending two hours, let alone a whole day, without my mobile would have been anathema.”
- An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.“I trembled at his ringing wealth
Of manifold anathemas […]”
- Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by ecclesiastical authority to unending punishment.“If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- anathematize 94% match — To cause to be, or to declare as, an anathema or evil. vs anathema →
- anathemize 92% match — To declare to be anathema; to curse and reject. vs anathema →
- execration 90% match — An act or instance of cursing; a curse dictated by violent feelings of hatred; an imprecation; an expression of utter detestation. vs anathema →
- accurse 87% match — To damn; to wish misery or evil upon vs anathema →
- abominate 87% match — Abominable; detested. vs anathema →
- excommunicate 86% match — To officially exclude someone from membership of a church or religious community. vs anathema →
- excommunication 86% match — The act of excommunicating, disfellowshipping or ejecting; especially an ecclesiastical censure whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is, for the time, cast out of the communication of the church; exclusion from fellowship in things spiritual. vs anathema →
- detestation 86% match — Hate coupled with disgust; abhorrence. vs anathema →