What's the difference between curse and imprecation?

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).

Imprecation


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of imprecating, or invoking evil upon any one; a prayer that a curse or calamity may fall on any one; a curse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because the governments are relatively powerless to affect US policy toward them, they turn their energies to repressing and keeping down their own populations, with results in resentment, anger and helpless imprecations that do nothing to open up societies where secular ideas about human history and development have been overtaken by failure and frustration, as well as by an Islamism built out of rote learning and the obliteration of what are perceived to be other, competitive forms of secular knowledge.
  • (2) Mr Clegg could declare without irony that the Lib Dems belong in power, and at last lay to rest the lingering echo of David Steel's hubristic imprecation to go home and prepare for power.
  • (3) It begins in bravura style with sirens and a clap of thunder, and then – judging by the excerpts we hear – is thrillingly noisy and aggressive, indeed a return to the familiar Wu landscape of sinister soul samples, whiplash drums, and dire threats and imprecations, updated with the occasional reference to Harry Potter.
  • (4) As in the case of China, one does not have to regard Putin’s moves and motives favorably to understand the logic behind them, nor to grasp the importance of understanding that logic instead of issuing imprecations against it.
  • (5) EU gives Poland two months to scrap changes to its highest court Read more So far, Kaczyński has concluded he can ignore imprecations from Brussels or half-hearted protests from members with their minds on other matters.
  • (6) Of course they and my brother Don, despite my stuttered imprecations, drove through the night from Edinburgh.