An imprecation is a spoken curse or the act of calling down evil or misfortune on someone. When a character in a story shouts “May you never find peace!” or “A plague on both your houses!” they're uttering an imprecation. The word comes from Latin roots meaning “to pray against.”

You'll encounter imprecations most often in older literature, ancient myths, and historical accounts. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the dying Mercutio delivers a famous imprecation against the feuding families. In Greek mythology, curses and imprecations carried real power: when someone invoked the gods to punish an enemy, people believed those words could actually harm the target.

While modern people might angrily say “I hope you fail!” in the heat of an argument, that's usually just venting frustration. True imprecations historically involved calling on divine powers or fate itself to bring punishment. They were considered serious, even dangerous speech acts that weren't spoken lightly.

Today the word appears mainly in literary or historical contexts rather than everyday conversation.