Crossword clues for malediction
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Malediction \Mal`e*dic"tion\, n. [L. maledictio: cf. F. mal['e]diction. See Maledicent.] A proclaiming of evil against some one; a cursing; imprecation; a curse or execration; -- opposed to benediction.
No malediction falls from his tongue.
--Longfellow.
Syn: Cursing; curse; execration; imprecation; denunciation; anathema.
Usage: Malediction, Curse, Imprecation, Execration. Malediction is the most general term, denoting bitter reproach, or wishes and predictions of evil. Curse implies the desire or threat of evil, declared upon oath or in the most solemn manner. Imprecation is literally the praying down of evil upon a person. Execration is literally a putting under the ban of excommunication, a curse which excludes from the kingdom of God. In ordinary usage, the last three words describe profane swearing, execration being the strongest.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mid-15c., from Old French maledicion "a curse" (15c.), from Latin maledictionem (nominative maledictio) "the action of speaking evil of, slander," in Late Latin "a curse," noun of action from past participle stem of maledicere "to speak badly or evil of, slander," from male "badly" (see mal-) + dicere "to say" (see diction).
Wiktionary
n. 1 A curse 2 evil speech
WordNet
n. the act of calling down a curse that invokes evil (and usually serves as an insult); "he suffered the imprecations of the mob" [syn: imprecation]
Wikipedia
Malediction may also refer to:
- Curse, wish that some form of adversity or unhappiness befall another person
- Malediction (EP), a 1993 EP by Einstürzende Neubauten
- a GURPS enhancement
Malediction is a 1993 EP released by Einstürzende Neubauten.
Usage examples of "malediction".
I shall endeavour to extract, from the midst of insult and contempt and maledictions, those admonitions which may tend to correct whatever imperfections such censurers may discover in this my first serious appeal to the Public.
And the saint, wounded in his heart, cast the weapon of his malediction on this child of hell, who, pierced thereby, even at the moment breathed out his soul into the infernal regions.
Wherefore the saint punished him with the sentence of his malediction, and foretold that not one of his seed should reign after him, but that his kingdom should be transferred to Kerellus, his younger brother.
She might have shared in his relief that after seven hundred years of haunting, he had finally come up with a legal means to break the malediction that had bound him to the stone of the castle only for so long as it did not belong to him in truth.
Pietro Staccia was about to die and his numerous friends came to entreat Francis to revoke his malediction, all their efforts were in vain.
Decidedly, the more I think of this excellent man, the more I reproach myself for the sort of malediction I bestowed on him when I awoke.
He laid foul curses upon Pardos and all of his ancestors, gradually broadening his sphere of malediction to include the whole of the world and every living thing in it.
Barney and Old Jimmie talked to each other as the taxicab bumped through the cobbled streets, their talk being for the most part maledictions against Larry Brainard.
Traces of an old roost: a scattering of frayed butts, toppled beer cans, empty matchbooks, an accumulation of names, dates, maledictions scratched into the supporting steelwork.
Slowly I swung it back and forth in the air before me, as if by such a pitiful act I could ward off the maledictions she hurled at me.
Everybody came to buy corn at the farm and went away pouring maledictions on the Black Brothers.
My name perhaps among the circumcised, In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes, To all posterity may stand defamed, With malediction mentioned, and the blot Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced.
Ecclesiastically and doctrinally they stood in the open, while Romanist and Protestant, Anglican and Puritan, Calvinist and Arminian waged bitter war, filling the air with angry maledictions.
Groans from pain-racked bodies could not be repressed, and bitter curses and maledictions against the Rebels leaped unbidden to the lips at the slightest occasion, but there was no murmuring or whining.
Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and recounting the days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped, and accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally blaming Mr.