imprecate
verb/ˈɪmpɹəkeɪt/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin imprecātus, perfect active participle of imprecor (“to invoke (good or evil) upon, pray to, call upon”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from in- (“upon”) + precor (“to pray”).
1
To call down by prayer, as something hurtful or calamitous.
- 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; [...]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 119”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
- Derived terms
- imprecatingly, imprecator
- Related terms
- imprecation, imprecatory