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anathema

[uh-nath-uh-muh] / əˈnæθ ə mə /
NOUN
something hated
Synonyms
Antonyms
STRONG




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Instead, they will need to pursue something that’s been largely anathema to the American system of government: accountability.

From Salon Jul. 3, 2026

As somebody who was at the DOJ for 21 years, I find that to be anathema to how I thought about public service.

From Slate Jun. 9, 2026

"The path to rebuilding the right can only happen with the broadest possible spirit of unity, without exclusion and without anathema," he writes.

From Barron's Dec. 17, 2025

Commercials were anathema to Hastings, but Netflix has now built an ad business.

From The Wall Street Journal Dec. 6, 2025

The latter, never mind everything else about Massenet, would have been anathema to drama-obsessed Wagner.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

As he pronounced anathemas on you and your kind, the smile peeked out beneath the sneer.

From Slate Dec. 16, 2011

The Welles-Houseman partnership ended badly, with Welles hurling blazing Sterno heaters at Producer Houseman and howling anathemas at him in that voice of Zeus.

From Time Magazine Archive

The next year the spiritual leaders of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy withdrew the mutual anathemas that their predecessors had hurled at each other a full millennium before.

From Time Magazine Archive

The next year, the Patriarch and the Pope officially revoked the mutual anathemas that had been hurled at the start of the schism between East and West in 1054.

From Time Magazine Archive

All the jests at its expense, all the anathemas that are heaped upon it, are as revolting to me as so many acts of ingratitude, I might say as so many absurdities.

From Franz Liszt by Huneker, James




Vocabulary lists containing anathema


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