Excommunication

//ɛkskəmjuːnɪˈkeɪʃən// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of excommunicating, disfellowshipping or ejecting; especially an ecclesiastical censure whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is, for the time, cast out of the communication of the church; exclusion from fellowship in things spiritual. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    the act of banishing a member of a church from the communion of believers and the privileges of the church; cutting a person off from a religious society wordnet
  3. 3
    the state of being excommunicated wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
anathemaaphorismosbanbanishmentblasphemycensure

Example

More examples

"Although communication and excommunication sound similar, they have absolutely nothing to do with one other."

Etymology

From Middle English excommunicacion, from Late Latin excommūnicātiō. By surface analysis, excommunicate + -ion. Displaced native Old English āmǣnsumung.

Related phrases

child sexual abusejehovah's witnesses

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.