Word of the Day

: July 27, 2014

execrate

verb EK-suh-krayt

What It Means

1 : to declare to be evil or detestable : denounce

2 : to detest utterly

execrate in Context

The school principal execrated the individuals who had stolen the cashbox from the raffle table.

"Long execrated by Republicans as a 'death tax,' the posthumous federal levy on accumulated wealth has Democratic detractors as well, especially those who represent significant numbers of rural landowners." - The Washington Post, December 12, 2012

Did You Know?

To Latinists, there's nothing cryptic about the origins of "execrate"-the word derives from "exsecratus," the past participle of the Latin verb "exsecrari," meaning "to put under a curse." "Exsecrari" was itself created by combining the prefix "ex-" ("not") and the word "sacer" ("sacred"). "Sacer" is also an ancestor of such English words as "sacerdotal" ("relating to priests"), "sacral" ("holy or sacred"), "sacrifice," "sacrilege," and of course "sacred" itself. There's also "execration," which, true to its "exsecrari" roots, means "the act of cursing" or "the curse so uttered."