To call down harm upon someone by cursing, or to utter curses.
Use it for
Words that belong together
- imprecate an enemy
- imprecate a persecutor
- imprecate against someone
On the page
From the scaffold, the prisoner imprecated the men who had betrayed him.
Nearby words
Opposite meanings
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- imprecate
- Past tense
- imprecated
- Past participle
- imprecated
- Present participle
- imprecating
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- imprecate
- Present continuous
- am/is/are imprecating
- Present perfect
- have/has imprecated
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been imprecating
- Past
- imprecated
- Past continuous
- was/were imprecating
- Past perfect
- had imprecated
- Past perfect continuous
- had been imprecating
- Future
- will imprecate
- Future continuous
- will be imprecating
- Future perfect
- will have imprecated
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been imprecating
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Primary category: horror / gothic literary. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: imprecate; imprecates; imprecated; imprecated; imprecating Commonness: uncommon (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct entry read: invoke evil on or utter curses, transitive/intransitive. One core curse sense rather than padding two grammatical valencies. Forms imprecated/imprecating. Distinguish an invocation of evil from ordinary swearing. Individually reviewed for a precise writer function, not selected merely for rarity. Original definitions/examples; commonness editorial, not a corpus statistic. Genre suitability does not establish inherent fear or emotional intensity. Writing functions: a spoken wish of harm, curse distinguished from ordinary swearing. Third-person singular: imprecates.
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