part of speech: noun

The solemn curse of the Church in excommunication; any curse; the thing or person so cursed.

part of speech: noun

( orig.) An offering made and set up in a temple: an ecclesiastical curse: any person or thing anathematized.

part of speech: noun

An ecclesiastical curse; imprecation.

part of speech: noun

A curse solemnly pronounced by ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication. The person or thing accursed; a curse generally; a religious offering.

part of speech: noun

A curse; a separation for destruction.

But during those two days there was no rest for him; his business pursued him through mail and over wire, and the jarring note of the telephone became anathema to the entire household at Deep Willows.

The Mexican youth who had asked for the tobacco retorted with some more or less vile language, intimating that Pete was neither Mexican nor white- an insult compared to which mere anathema was as nothing. "The Ridin' Kid from Powder River", Henry Herbert Knibbs.

One and all they stood spellbound, their eyes on the floor, their lips unconsciously uttering the speech universal of anger and of horror, the instinctive language of anathema. "A Breath of Prairie and other stories", Will Lillibridge.

It is, perhaps, of less consequence that this anathema also touches the apostle Paul, who declares that the heathen who have not the law are a law to themselves when they do right, and are absolved by their conscience. "Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors", James Freeman Clarke.