anathema

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   something or someone intensely disliked, rejected, or regarded as wholly unacceptable

   Censorship was anathema to the independent publisher.

2. 2
   noun

   a formal ecclesiastical curse or condemnation, often involving excommunication

   The council pronounced an anathema against the condemned doctrine.

Simplified etymology

Anathema entered English in the early 16th century through ecclesiastical Latin, where it meant an excommunicated person or an act of excommunication. It derives from Greek anathēma, originally “something dedicated,” which later developed the senses “something devoted to evil” and “accursed thing.”

Borrowed through Late Latin from Greek anathema, originally 'something set up or dedicated,' from anatithenai, 'to set up.' In church Greek it narrowed to something devoted to destruction or formally cursed, producing the modern figurative sense of a thing utterly detested.

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