anathema

Pronunciation pronunciation key
ănathămă

Definition 
Something or someone deemed detestable or otherwise accursed or intolerable. Originally a Greek word implying "something hung up in a temple and dedicated to a god," it took on a more negative connotation through the Hebrew practice of "dedicating" their defeated enemies to God by sacrificing them. In the New Testament the word thus came to denote anything abhorrent to the Lord and by extension anything evil or accursed. The Book of 1 Corinthians ends with the apostle Paul writing, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha" (16:22). (Maranatha means "the Lord cometh" and is intended merely as a closing benediction to the letter but sometimes is mistakenly treated as an intensification of anathema). It also came to be applied to formal denunciations or the curse of excommunication (or curses in general). The idea of taking a vacation in a country where women were treated as second-class citizens was anathema to her.