cursing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of curse.

   She stood beside the stalled car, cursing under her breath.

   The old woman was cursing the family who had driven her from her land.

   Note

   One -ing spelling does two jobs: the participle after be (he was cursing the traffic) and the gerund naming the action (cursing won't fix the engine). With no object it usually means swearing, often under one's breath; with a person as its object it can mean wishing harm on them, as an old woman curses the family who drove her out.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of a person who curses someone or something, or who swears.

   The coach warned his players that any more cursing would cost them the game.

   After the witch's cursing of the village, no crops would grow in its fields.

   Similarswearing, profanity, cussing

   Oppositeblessing

   Note

   The noun is older than it looks: Old English already had cursung, the verb with an ending that became -ing, and it passed through Middle English cursyng. Unlike the verb form, it can take an article and a plural, so a story can tell of a cursing laid on a village, or of the cursings of an angry crowd.

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