Definitive Jest

Entry: imprecated (v.)


In context: "After she had smoked homemade freebase cocaine this A.M. for the last time and then fired up the Chore Boys and good panties she'd used as a last filter and chocked on burnt acetate when she shredded and smoked them, and had wept and imprecated at the mirrors and throw away her paraphernalia for the final time, when an hour later she'd walked not formally to her T-stop under a parliament of gathering storm-clouds and faint sticky bits of autumn thunder to ride to Upper Brighton and find Lady Delphina..."

Definition: All of the definitions are fairly interesting, so I'll include the lot:

1. trans. To pray for, invoke (something, usually from a deity).
a. To invoke or call down (evil or calamity) upon a person.
b. To pray for; to beg for, entreat (something good). rare.
 
2. To pray (a deity), invoke, supplicate. Now rare or Obs.
 
†3. absol. or intr. To pray; to invoke evil. Obs.
 
4. trans. To invoke evil upon (a person); to curse. Now rare or Obs.


Other:  None of the usages are particularly cheerful, but this one should brighten up your day:


1669   T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. I ii. ix. 140   After they had imprecated on the head of the sacrifice, they cut it off.

SNOOT score: 3

Page: 225
 
Source: Oxford English Dictionary