imprecate

imprecate

English

Etymology

From Latin imprecari (“to invoke (good or evil) upon, pray to, call upon”), from in (“upon”) + precari (“to pray”).

Verb

imprecate (third-person singular simple present imprecates, present participle imprecating, simple past and past participle imprecated)

1. (transitive) To call down by prayer, as something hurtful or calamitous.
2. (transitive) To invoke evil upon; to curse; to swear at.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 119

     To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea; [...]

Related terms

• imprecation

Translations

to call down by prayer

Bulgarian: проклинам (bg) (proklinam) Russian: проклина́ть (ru) impf (proklinátʹ)

Spanish: imprecar (es)

to invoke evil upon

Bulgarian: пожелавам зло (poželavam zlo) Occitan: imprecar, escomenjar

Russian: проклина́ть (ru) impf (proklinátʹ) Spanish: imprecar (es)

Further reading

• imprecate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• imprecate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• imprecate at OneLook Dictionary Search

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Italian

Verb

imprecate

1. second-person plural present indicative of imprecare
2. second-person plural imperative of imprecare
3. feminine plural of imprecato

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Latin

Participle

imprecāte

1. vocative masculine singular of imprecātus