anathema

The definition of an anathema is a person or thing who is detested or hated.

(noun)

Adolf Hitler is an example of an anathema.

See anathema in Webster's New World College Dictionary

a thing or person accursed or damned
a thing or person greatly detested
1. a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a teaching judged to be gravely opposed to accepted church doctrine, or of the originators or supporters of such a teaching
2. the excommunication often accompanying or following this condemnation

Origin: LL(Ec) < Gr, thing devoted to evil; previously, anything devoted < anatithenai, to dedicate < ana-, up + tithenai, to place: see do

adjective

See anathema in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun pl. a·nath·e·mas

A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.
A vehement denunciation; a curse: “the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Nathaniel Hawthorne).
One that is cursed or damned.
One that is greatly reviled, loathed, or shunned: “Essentialism—a belief in natural, immutable sex differences—is anathema to postmodernists, for whom sexuality itself, along with gender, is a ‘social construct’” (Wendy Kaminer).

Origin:

Origin: Late Latin anathema, doomed offering, accursed thing

Origin: , from Greek

Origin: , from anatithenai, anathe-, to dedicate

Origin: : ana-, ana-

Origin: + tithenai, to put; see dhē- in Indo-European roots

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