The Latin word imprecāri came into Spanish as imprecar . This action refers to expressing terms with which the desire for an individual to experience evil or suffer some type of harm is expressed.
For example: “There are people who only want to curse and who have no interest in finding points of agreement,” “The old man did not stop imprecating the man who had approached him with the aim of talking for a while,” “I will not refrain .” to curse the person responsible for this terrible situation.”
In a broad sense, imprecating is synonymous with cursing or insulting . When someone wants to convey their anger or irritation, they may curse, uttering profanities and blasphemies.
Suppose that different political parties call for a demonstration in front of the Government House . The objective is to make public the discontent of many citizens with the policies applied by the president. As the protesters begin to gather, there are those who begin to curse the president and demand his resignation.
Take the case of a football match. A player scores a goal and celebrates it in front of the rival team's supporters. Because of this attitude, a crowd becomes angry and curses the footballer .
It should be noted that, if imprecating is linked to reviling or offending, the opposite is praising, exalting or pondering . If a singer decides to end a show after performing three songs, the audience will scold him. On the other hand, if the artist offers a two-hour concert , singing his most popular songs, people will applaud him.
Having said all this, we can move on to take a look at some of the most common synonyms of the term imprecate , given that it is not used very frequently in everyday speech: blaspheme , apostrophize, curse, insult and condemn . As can be seen, in this list there are also words that do not appear naturally in informal conversation; However, the last three do belong to popular language.
In any case, these statements are very subjective, since everyday speech is not something static or even for all participants: in different age groups, from children to the elderly, we can find different levels of complexity in the use of language. , which affects grammar, vocabulary and sentence length, among other aspects. On the other hand, not all adolescents have a lower language proficiency than the elderly, and vice versa.
Regarding the etymology of the verb imprecar , we have mentioned that its origin is found in Latin, although it is necessary to add that at that time it did not have negative feelings associated with it, but rather it was simply the action of wishing something for another person, or well that could achieve a certain objective. In fact, in religious texts it is common to see it as a kind of prayer, through which one prays to a higher force for the good of others.
The main reason why this word has acquired this negative connotation , and has remained with it only, is that more than one important author wanted to use it that way. We are talking about intellectuals like Tacitus, Seneca and Virgil, whose influence managed to transform the word imprecar .
In the family of this term we also find the noun imprecation , which receives two meanings from the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy: "action and effect of imprecating"; in rhetoric, "the putting into words of a negative desire toward another person." In this case we are faced with a feminine noun ending in -ción , a prefix that is often used to give the idea of "action and effect."