What's the difference between anathema and curse?

Anathema


Definition:

  • (n.) A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication. Hence: Denunciation of anything as accursed.
  • (n.) An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.
  • (n.) Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by ecclesiastical authority.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Throughout his career he has continued to champion Crane, seeing him as the direct heir to Walt Whitman – Whitman being "not just the most American of poets but American poetry proper, our apotropaic champion against European culture" – and slayer of neo-Christian adversaries such as "the clerical TS Eliot" and the old New Critics, who were and are anathema to Bloom, unresting defender of the Romantic tradition.
  • (2) Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski will not face battery charges Read more In a jeremiad against political correctness redolent of his future employer, Miller writes that “politically correct dictates are anathema to American values”.
  • (3) The medical profession has gone downhill since the days when abortionists were anathema.
  • (4) This camp believes that a deal, should it be reached, will enshrine Iran’s right to a nuclear programme in international law – an idea it finds an anathema,” said analyst Jeffrey Goldberg .
  • (5) A spectacular fall from grace on the pitch – from first to seventh, playing dour football that is anathema to fans who feasted on success throughout the Ferguson era – will also lead to renewed scrutiny of the club's controversial US owners, the Glazer family , away from it.
  • (6) This is anathema to most in the socialist party, whose leaders would prefer a coalition with PP than with Podemos.
  • (7) But we also face the risk that the forces of opposition are correct: that these policies are electoral anathema, or unworkable, or both.
  • (8) The idea that a judge who may be no expert in the field can dish out so-called super-injunctions – preventing us from even knowing that he or she has restrained publication – is insulting to the public and anathema to democracy.
  • (9) It was anathema to conservatives, and Rubio had backed away from it almost as soon as it passed the Senate (it reached a dead end in the House).
  • (10) These were the restrictive customs of Pashtun village life, but anathema to educated women, especially in Kabul.
  • (11) He can't talk about his life as a Mormon, which, rightly or wrongly, seems weird to most Americans and he can't talk about Massachusetts because the two policies he is known for – legislation against assault weapons and universal health insurance – are anathema to the Republican party.
  • (12) While such an idea appears logical and attractive to many scientists and civil society groups, among the governments of many leading countries it is anathema, as it implies much stronger limits on emissions than any that have yet been agreed.
  • (13) Like his pal Milton Friedman, government was anathema.
  • (14) Under the terms of the deal currently being thrashed out in a bid to meet a 10 October takeover panel deadline, those stakes will be reduced to around 9% each – a level that Darling views as anathema.
  • (15) The idea that sectors of our community should have to book in advance when others don’t is anathema to me.
  • (16) The expression of freedom was often an anathema to plantation owners, the financial markets and politicians.
  • (17) Their move towards reliability even extends to pushing for regulation of the currency, something which seems anathema to longer-standing users .
  • (18) The report he referred to was an internal document obtained by the Guardian last week , in the runup to the referendum, which supported Greek calls for writing down the country’s unmanageable debt level, a proposal that is anathema to Berlin.
  • (19) It is usually considered anathema to the culture of Anonymous; but they appear to have made an exception to this rule when it comes to lifting the hoods of Klan members.
  • (20) Such partisan journalism is anathema to the very DNA of Sabah.

Curse


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury upon; to imprecate evil upon; to execrate.
  • (v. t.) To bring great evil upon; to be the cause of serious harm or unhappiness to; to furnish with that which will be a cause of deep trouble; to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment.
  • (v. i.) To utter imprecations or curses; to affirm or deny with imprecations; to swear.
  • (v. t.) An invocation of, or prayer for, harm or injury; malediction.
  • (v. t.) Evil pronounced or invoked upon another, solemnly, or in passion; subjection to, or sentence of, divine condemnation.
  • (v. t.) The cause of great harm, evil, or misfortune; that which brings evil or severe affliction; torment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But it was also a portrait of an England charged with secrets - and, as Michael Billington put it, the work of an accomplished playwright who understood the English curse of 'emotional evasion.'
  • (2) A new, terrible curse that comes on top of the bleaching, the battering, the poisoning and the pollution.
  • (3) She comes from the "cursed" political dynasty in Pakistan : her grandfather, the former president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed in 1979, three years before Fatima was born; her father, the radical politician Murtaza Bhutto, was shot dead by police in 1996; and her aunt, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was killed in a bombing in 2007.
  • (4) It has somehow managed to escape the curse of Murdoch, who partly owns it.
  • (5) But it accused South Park of having mocked the prophet, and cited Islamic scholars who ruled that "whoever curses the messenger of Allah must be killed".
  • (6) Now they await the results of the American League Championship Series to see whether this year's World Series will be a rematch of 2004, when the Cardinals were swept by the curse-reversing Boston Red Sox, or 2006, when the Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers and became one of the worst teams to win the World Series in MLB history .
  • (7) Several survivors and family members of the victims who were flown to the US testified this week , and one cursed Bales for attacking villagers as some slept and others screamed for mercy.
  • (8) The bakers can freeze each layer as it goes on, tensely waiting by the ice box, cursing under their breath.
  • (9) Still alive, he was then surrounded by people who cursed and spat at him, kicked him in the head and tried to hit him with a chair.
  • (10) How they got here You'll be forgiven if you thought they were still cursed, if you had been following recent baseball history.
  • (11) Not a Lynyrd Skynyrd "doom will plague you at every turn" sort of curse, it must be said; more a sequence of mildly irritating events.
  • (12) In 1 infant diagnosed with Ondine's curse, examination showed diffuse neuronal loss and gliosis in the medullary tegmentum.
  • (13) Since then, the cursing and sobbing have been plentiful.
  • (14) Maguwu said: "To me it's very clear the diamonds have been a curse to this country.
  • (15) As Taylor cursed, McClaren embarked on a tactical rejig.
  • (16) The curse of playing Ari Gold is that Jeremy Piven may have to spend the rest of his life trying to convince the world he is not a rage-fuelled blustering asshole.
  • (17) They managed to catch two people, aged no more than 30, and were beating them up badly, swearing at them all the time and cursing the Shia clerics, saying: "Where is al-Khomeini now?
  • (18) It would swirl around that child's head in the manner of a bad fairy from a storybook bringing along a cursed gift to a christening.
  • (19) Infantile delivery also frequently serves to take the curse off self-publicity; sleight of hand for those who find "my programme is on BBC2 tonight" too presumptuous and exposing, and prefer to cower behind the low-status imbecility of "I done rote a fingy for da tellybox!"
  • (20) This discovered gothic quality within everyday life found one of its finest expressions in the American work of French-born director Jacques Tourneur , especially the brilliant Cat People (1943), Curse of the Cat People (1944) and Night of the Demon (1957).