See also: Improve Impressive Impractical Impression Imprudent Improper Improbable Impromptu Imprint Imprudence Impressionable Impregnable Imprison Impressed Imprinted Impregnate Improvise Improvised Improvement Imprecate Imprecise Improvident Impressionistic Improvisatori Impresario
IMPRECATORYINSCRIPTIONS
(redirected from imprecatory) Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Legal. (religion, spiritualism, and occult) From the Latin imprecari, meaning to "invoke by prayer," an imprecation is a plea to a deity and, most often, a recited spell meant to curse.
To invoke evil upon; curse. [Latin imprecāri, imprecāt- : in-, towards; see in-2 + precārī, to pray, ask; see prek- in Indo-European roots .] im′pre·ca′tor n. American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Such supplications, known as " imprecatory prayers," have been embraced by some extremists in the Religious Right to use against their perceived enemies. As it is, we will have to assume this abrupt beginning to have been in the established manner of imprecatory inscriptions" (p.