imprecation

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin imprecātiō (“an invoking of evil”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} a noun of action from imprecor (“to invoke, pray, call down upon”),^[2][3] formed from an assimilated form of in- (“in, into, on”) and precor (“to pray, ask, beg”),^[3][9][7][6] from Proto-Indo-European *prek- (“to ask, entreat”).^[3] Barnhart allows for a passage through Middle French imprecation,^[9] and Weekley also names French imprécation,^[10] which the OED only compares, noting an Old French form of the 14th century.^[2] Imprecate is probably a back-formation from it.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A curse, the invoking of evil: 1448 in Barnhart,^[9] mid-15th century in Etymonline,^[3] late Middle English in the Shorter Oxford.^[4] The OED entry, not fully revised since 1899, has nothing before 1585, when the word means a prayer, in T. Washington's translation of N. de Nicolay's Navigations, and for cursing it starts in 1589, in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb meant simply to invoke or call down by prayer,^[3][10] and the neutral sense "prayer, entreaty" appears in English too, recorded from 1585 to 1631 by the OED,^[2][9] and called rare by the Shorter Oxford.^[4] Weekley thought the limitation to evil wishes "characteristic of human nature", and cited a 1664 use of the verb imprecate for wishing someone happiness.^[10][3] Johnson (1755) already defined the noun as a curse or a prayer wishing evil, with a quotation from Chapman's Odyssey: "My mother shall the horrid furies raise with imprecations".^[11] From 1603 the word could be counted, for a single curse.^[2]

Timeline

• 1448 – a curse, the action of invoking evil.^[9][3] The OED's first quotation for this sense is from 1589.^[2]
• 1585 – a prayer, invocation or petition (obsolete by 1631 in the OED).^[2][9]
• 1603 – with a plural, an individual curse.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spoken curse: He muttered imprecations at the jammed printer.^{[12][5][4][2]}
2. The act of calling down evil on someone or of cursing, as in an oath.^[12][5][2]
3. (rare) A prayer or entreaty.^[4][5][2]

Word family

• imprecatory

Related words

• imprecate
• pray
• prayer
• deprecate
• precarious

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins