| \uh-NATH-uh-muh\ | noun
1. a person or thing detested or loathed: That subject is anathema to him.
2. a person or thing accursed or consigned to damnation or destruction.
| | Quotes | Physical labor had always been anathema to him and the thought of wielding an axe to cut down trees scared him so much that he would have preferred to become a tramp.
-- Émile Zola, "Priests and Sinners," The Attack on the Mill and Other Stories, translated by Douglas Parmée, 1984 | | | | | | | | | | Origin of anathema | | Anathema derives from the Late Latin noun anathema "curse of excommunication, excommunication," from the Hellenistic Greek anáthema originally "anything dedicated," later "a curse," and in the Septuagint (the oldest Greek version of the Old Testament) "a thing devoted to evil." The word entered English in the early 1500s. | |
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