Definition of "execration" []

• The act of cursing. (noun)
• A curse. (noun)
• Something that is cursed or loathed. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Cheerfulness is the mainspring of discipline, and the desire to reward merit while crime is held in execration, ought ever to be the delight of the officer."
• "One source is the so-called execration texts—curse inscriptions, written on pottery fragments on statuettes of prisoners of war that were meant to be broken and buried ceremonially to bring misfortune upon the enemies of Egypt."
• "Well, he had stood on his tub and done his shouting right well; and now he had a goodly following and was the object of not a little execration, which is a usual thing for tub-shouters, and does not matter very much."