a. An utterance consigning, or supposed or intended to consign, (a person or thing) to spiritual and temporal evil, the vengeance of the deity, the blasting of malignant fate, etc. It may be uttered by the deity, or by persons supposed to speak in his name, or to be listened to by him.

b. spec. A formal ecclesiastical censure or anathema; a sentence of excommunication.

a. Without implication of the effect: The uttering of a malediction with invocation or adjuration of the deity; a profane oath, an imprecation.

b. Used in plural as an imprecation, expressing irritation or frustration; esp. (histrionically or as a stage-aside) curses, foiled again!

c. In such phrases as not worth a curse, not to care a curse, the expression possibly comes down from the Middle English not worth a kerse, kers, cres: see cress n. 2.But historical connection between the two is not evidenced, there being an interval of more than 300 years between the examples of the Middle English and the modern phrase; and damn (cf. care v. 4a) occurs as early as curse, so that the coincidence may be merely accidental.

a. An object of cursing or execration; an accursed thing or person.

b. = cuss n. 2.

c. An angler's name for a very small gnat or midge.

a. The evil inflicted by divine (or supernatural) power in response to an imprecation, or in the way of retributive punishment.

b. A great evil (regarded more or less vaguely as inflicted or resting upon a person, community, etc.); a thing which blights or blasts; a blasting affliction, a bane.

c. curse of Scotland n. a name given to the nine of diamonds in a pack of cards.Origin of the name doubtful. A not unlikely suggestion is that the card was so called from resembling the armorial bearings of Dalrymple, Lord Stair, nine lozenges on a saltire, the number and shape of the spots being identical, and their arrangement sufficiently similar. The first Earl of Stair was the object of much execration, especially from the adherents of the Stuarts, for his share in sanctioning the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, and subsequently for the influential part played by him in bringing about the Union with England in 1707. An opponent says he was ‘at the bottom of the Union’, and ‘so he may be styled the Judas of the Country’.

d. the curse: menstruation. colloquial.

a. Said of the deity or supernatural power.

b. Said of persons claiming to speak in the divine name, esp. officers of the church: To pronounce a formal curse against, to anathematize, excommunicate, consign to perdition.

a. Hence (without implication of the effect): To imprecate or invoke divine vengeance or evil fate upon; to denounce with adjuration of the divine name; to pour maledictions upon; to swear at. Also const. for.

†b. with object clause. Obsolete. rare.

c. In imprecations (with no subject expressed): = damn v., confound v.