Faith & RitualGreek → English
Anathema
/əˈnæθəmə/noun
Something detested, or a formal curse of the church cutting someone off from the community.
The Greek roots
ἀνά
aná
up
τίθημι
títhēmi
to set, place
Literally: “a thing set up”
The story of the word
ἀνάθημα was a votive offering, an object set up in a temple and so given over to a god. In the Septuagint the variant spelling ἀνάθεμα took the darker half of that idea, a thing handed over for destruction, and church councils then used it as the formula of excommunication. One word therefore covers both what is dedicated to a god and what is cursed by one.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
thesisthemehypothesisapothecary
In a sentence
Compromise was anathema to him, which made him a poor negotiator and a popular speaker.