These words refer to the denouncing of something or the calling down of evil on someone. Curse is the only relatively informal word here and the one most widely used in a variety of ways. Most informally, it can refer to any blasphemous oath or example of profanity, but more pertinent here, it suggests the denunciation of someone in whatever terms: cursing her for being an unfaithful wife. Behind this use lies the more specific situation of appealing to a supernatural power to punish a wrongdoer or enemy: King Lear’s calling upon the gods to curse his ungrateful daughters. The word can also pertain to any condition seen as a handicap or misfortune: the curse of being a woman in a man’s world. Behind this use lies the more specific situation of seeing the occurrence of some affliction as a punishment sent by fate: arguing that his misfortunes were a curse of his inconstancy.

Execration and imprecation are more formal substitutes for curse in the sense of denouncing or calling down harm upon someone. Of the two, execration is the more intense, suggesting greater violence and loathing; his execration of his son’s misbehaviour before the whole family. The word can also refer to the denunciations themselves: the columnist’s predictable execrations of the party in power. Imprecation derives from a Latin word meaning to pray and this was reflected in a now obsolete use of the word for any sort of praying. More recently, the word points exclusively to the expressing of wishes or hopes that someone will meet with misfortune. This may be expressed verbally or in thought only, but the word suggests a private, even guarded expression to oneself of ill wishes, rather than the face-to-face denunciation of the person involved, as suggested by execration : muttering imprecations to himself against his mother-in-law; voodoo imprecations conducted in secret and employing wax dolls through which pins are stuck.

Malediction and anathema are the most formal of these words. Where execration can refer to a face-to-face attack and imprecation to a completely solitary expression of ill-will, both these words refer most often to public denunciation expressed to arouse general disapproval. Malediction compares with its opposite, benediction, and may similarly suggest a formalized, ritual or clerical denunciation: priestly maledictions against heresy within the church; a full-page ad taken by university professors to present their malediction against the government’s foreign policy. Its public nature can be seen in that the word is sometimes used as a synonym for slander: spreading unfounded maledictions that amounted to a character assassination of his ex-colleague. Anathema at its most specific refers to a formal ecclesiastical ban or curse , in which a person is excommunicated or a book or idea is condemned: pronouncing an anathema against the teachings of psychoanalysis. More generally, the word can refer to anything disliked or detested by anyone: explaining that his old crony was now anathema to him.