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''execrate'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''execrate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250713234737-00-⌔

execrate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

execrate (third-person singular simple present execrates, present participle execrating, simple past and past participle execrated)

  • (transitive) To feel loathing for; to abhor.
    • ✤ Yet she appeared confident in innocence, and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousands; […]1
    • ✤ And were I not a thing for you and me
      To execrate in anguish, you would be
      As indigent a stranger to surprise,
      I fear, as I was once, and as unwise.      2
  • (transitive) To declare to be hateful or abhorrent; to denounce.
    • ✤ Synonyms: anathematize, comminate, curse, damn, imprecate, maledict, obdurate
  • (intransitive, archaic) To invoke a curse; to curse or swear.
    • ✤ He longed to execrate aloud, to bring his fist down on something violently.3

Etymology

From Latin exsecrārī, execrārī, from ex (“out”) + sacrāre (“to consecrate, declare accursed”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɛɡzɪkɹeɪt/, /ˈɛksɪkɹeɪt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 161: ↩

  2. 1932, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Prodigal Son”, in Nicodemus, page 66: ↩

  3. 1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “Counterparts”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 109: ↩

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