malediction

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English malediccioun,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin maledictiō (“slander, abuse; in later Latin, a curse”);^[4][5][6][7] Etymonline and Barnhart also give borrowed from Old French maledicion as a source.^[5][6] The Latin noun was used for slander by Cicero, and in both senses in the Vulgate and in Christian writers.^[4] It is formed from the past participle stem of maledīcō (“to speak ill of, slander”),^[4][5][3] from male (“badly”) and dīcō (“to say”),^[4][5][7] from Proto-Indo-European *deik- (“to show”);^[5] the OED thinks the verb may imitate Ancient Greek κακηγορέω (kakēgoréō, “to speak ill of”).^[4] The English word is a learned doublet of malison, which came through French,^[8][3][4] and the opposite of benediction.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A curse, or the uttering of one: 1447, in Osbern Bokenham's Lives of Saints.^[4][6] Etymonline glosses the earliest uses as "a curse; condemnation, excommunication".^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to the 14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word was borrowed in its Christian sense of a curse, the condition of being under a ban; the older classical sense "slander, reviling" followed in English only from about 1530,^[4][5] and the OED marks it obsolete, with a last record in 1885,^[4] though Collins still lists slanderous comment as a sense.^[10] A third sense, wickedness or an evil intention, is recorded only between about 1475 and 1503.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "curse; execration; denunciation of evil".^[11]

Timeline

• 1447 – a curse, the uttering of a curse.^[4][6]
• c. 1475 – wickedness, an evil deed (obsolete by 1503).^[4]
• before 1530 – reviling, slander (now obsolete).^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A curse, or the uttering of one against someone: The old woman muttered a malediction at the departing tax collectors.^[10][2][4]
2. Slanderous accusation or abuse; reviling.^[10][4]

Word family

• maledictory
• maledictive

Related words

• malison
• benediction
• diction
• dictum
• malefactor
• malevolent

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.