(n.) An indignity offered to God in words, writing, or signs; impiously irreverent words or signs addressed to, or used in reference to, God; speaking evil of God; also, the act of claiming the attributes or prerogatives of deity.
(n.) Figuratively, of things held in high honor: Calumny; abuse; vilification.
Example Sentences:
(1) Fears over violence in Jakarta as hardline Islamists protest governor’s ‘blasphemy’ Read more The governorship of the capital is a powerful position and was a stepping stone for Joko Widodo to the presidency two years ago.
(2) His controversial 1988 book The Satanic Verses, which provoked a religious opinion or fatwa, from the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the author's killing as punishment for blasphemy, is still banned in India.
(3) But this was, after all, the late 20th century and the rather antiquated British blasphemy laws were something of an irrelevance.
(4) To people who have faith that the world can heal itself through the unfettered interaction of economically rational individuals, and that, if capitalism were allowed to operate freely, there would be no more slumps and bubbles because the invisible hand of the market would guide everything to its rightful price, the seasonal rush must seem like an orgy of blasphemy.
(5) Chanting “God is greatest”, many in Friday’s protest waved placards calling for Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, to be jailed for blasphemy.
(6) During the original trial, much emphasis was placed on the blasphemy of the women doing their dance right in front of the altar.
(7) The government also blocked about a dozen websites and blogs to stem the furore over blasphemy, as well as stepping up security for the bloggers.
(8) They have pandered to fundamentalism over the blasphemy law rather than facing it down.
(9) I have lost two brothers in this war, I swear by the great honour of the southern revolution.” “That’s blasphemy – you should only swear by God,” said the jihadi.
(10) At the same time, Christian lobbyists, spotting broadcasters' ring-fencing of the prophet, have increased their own blasphemy-policing.
(11) Paris was the place to be, the political atmosphere suited a cartoonist’s work – cartoons fitted with the slogans and graffiti of the time, its poetry.” Willem joined Hara Kiri , Charlie Hebdo ’s precursor, setting himself immediately to work on blasphemy, vicious political satire and “things some people might regard as pornographic”.
(12) And in 2013, a lecturer called Junaid Hafeez was jailed after students accused him of committing blasphemy on his Facebook page in an affair which also led to his lawyer being shot dead.
(13) As a former Christian and theology graduate, I felt reasonably well qualified to argue my point about blasphemy, but sex is a whole other area – what is acceptable here is a rather more nebulous concept, of course, and there is little objective legislation to help us in matters of taste.
(14) Acquittals in blasphemy cases in the Indonesian courts are rare, but Ahok has vowed to continue his campaign and to contest the election.
(15) Not even the Spanish Inquisition entailed such delicate, hair-trigger recriminations for blasphemy as the one that set off this MSNBC host yesterday on his little patriotism enforcement crusade.
(16) Hundreds camped out until around four in the morning beside the parliament building, demanding Purnama be charged with blasphemy.
(17) There is some frankly rather inappropriate cheering at this shout-out to our most potent secular blasphemy, but not, I note, from the two serious young black men sitting next to me.
(18) Blasphemy might be an extremely serious offence in the receiving state; other states do not even criminalise it.
(19) Today's statement by foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu denounced Liu as a criminal and said his award was a "blasphemy to the peace prize".
(20) That was until July 1977, when Mary Whitehouse, self-appointed guardian of national morals, won a blasphemy libel case against Gay News for publishing a poem about a Roman centurion's homoerotic leanings towards the crucified Christ.
Execration
Definition:
(n.) The act of cursing; a curse dictated by violent feelings of hatred; imprecation; utter detestation expressed.
(n.) That which is execrated; a detested thing.
Example Sentences:
(1) All the statistics released about the Work Programme show execrable results, and yet we've heard nothing about penalties, or remaking the contracts, or rethinking the system.
(2) A critical review of epidemiological and experimental data from the literature has been made in an attempt to present an objective picture of this controversial and sensitive question and to encourage further research, which may ultimately determine whether arsenic deserves its execrable reputation.
(3) LP: My only experience of this was - and this might end up selling a lot of videos of a film that no one's ever seen - I produced a really execrable film in the mid-70s called Lisztomania, and I hope that no one here's seen it.
(4) Unrecorded in the YouGov poll are people who dislike all-women shortlists but dislike yet more the reason for their continued existence: the very culture that just created the execrable, the relentlessly mocked Woman Who Made up Her Mind .
(5) Its performance over the scandal of Winterbourne View was execrable, and this seemed to speak of much wider and more fundamental problems in its approach, resourcing and leadership.
(6) For the dark knight, readers will recall with horror George Clooney's bemused and Bat-nippled turn in the execrable Batman and Robin in 1997.
(7) The narrator, Nancy Hawkins, is a woman editor in a publishing house in the 1950s; her sworn enemy the execrable, self-congratulatory writer Hector Bartlett, to whom she refers to as the pisseur de copie.
(8) They included "the massacre of people solely for reasons of their religious adherence"; "the execrable practice[s] of decapitation, crucifixion and hanging of corpses in public places"; "the choice imposed on Christians and Yazidis between conversion to Islam, payment of a tax (jizya) and exodus"; "the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of people, including children, old people, pregnant women and the sick"; "the abduction of women and girls belonging to the Yazidi and Christian communities as war booty (sabaya)", and "the imposition of the barbaric practice of infibulation".
(9) PII certificates, he said, had previously been greeted by "howls of execration".
(10) Those movies include turkeys such as Jack and Jill and the execrable That's My Boy , though the rather better-performing Grown Ups 2 does not feature for statistical purposes because it falls outside the time period being factored in by Forbes.
(11) Lucas, the ultimate fanboy, has been the biggest culprit with his execrable prequels.
(12) I can already hear the howls of execration: now you're claiming that this cooling is the result of warming!
(13) His sweeping pronouncements never fail to set the leaves aflutter in the groves of academe, and his name surely is execrated in cultural studies departments from sea to shining sea across America.
(14) I’d like to be there, watching, when the old family films are played, and I’d like to impose my execrable musical taste on my friends and watch their faces as they suffer it.
(15) Ford, who is currently promoting his role in the sci-fi movie Ender's Game , is also taking a role in the latest film in Sylvester Stallone's execrable Expendables series .