The word "curse"

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The word "curse" appears to be unique to English. It first arose in Late Old English and its origin is unknown.

As for the other Germanic languages, the West Germanic languages use words that are related to the English verb "flog", which in English means to beat someone as punishment--the word has no supernatural connotations in English. Some examples are the German Fluch (noun) and verfluchen (verb) and the Dutch vloek (noun) and vloeken (verb). Old English had the related verb flōcan, which fell out of use before the start of the Middle English period.

The North Germanic languages use words that are related to the rarely used English verb "forban" (from for- + ban), which in English means to banish someone or send them into exile--with no supernatural connotations in English. Examples include Swedish förbanna (verb) and förbannelse (noun). (Now Icelandic uses the verb bölva, but I did not see where this word came from.)

Romance languages generally use words related to the English word loaned from French "malediction". Latin had the noun maledictio of the same meaning. Slavic languages seem to use a word that comes from Old Church Slavonic klęti, with maybe pro- or a variant added to the beginning. Lithuanian uses prakeikimas. Old Irish used do·beir mallachta for. Armenian uses anicel.

So where did "curse" come from? Some have suggested it may be related to a similar appearing French word for anger, but that's less plausible than it looks at first glance because the word "curse" appears in English before the Norman conquest. Others think it was perhaps a corruption of the word "cross". One crazy article I read a while back suggests a Turkic origin, from the claimed reconstructed Old Turkic root *qur- of the same meaning, which I have NOT been able to independently verify despite efforts to do so. I've wondered if it may be from a Uralic language, which in Proto-Uralic was *kira, perhaps via the Saami, but it's little more than speculation.

Anyway, as a native speaker of English, I can safely say that compared to words like "flog", "forban", and "malediction", the word "curse" carries a special umph, produces a visceral reaction. There is something terrifying, revolting, and seemingly torturous about coming under a curse, as opposed to getting flogged, forbanned, or put under malediction. A person under a curse has a special evil attached to them that endlessly torments them, and everything they do, especially if they complain, produces strong disgust in other people. I imagine someone walking around with a dark aura and a grim look as they try to make something of their day, and people avoid them like the plague; all the efforts of the accursed come to naught and they must deal with the anguish of never being able to love or be loved, enjoy life, or derive satisfaction but there is an evil that pulses through their veins, and you can almost see the black pulse. Everything they touch is ruined and they threaten to spread their evil all around like a virus.

So you can see "curse" is quite a word.

Interesting.

Didnt realize that the word was that mysterious.

I would vote for that theory that the word is somehow related to "cross".

We still say "dont cross me again, or I will kick your ass"- meaning "dont make me angry again". But that phrase is akin to the cross in "crossing paths". Crossing paths in a bad way by "getting in the person's way". I dont think that the expression "crossing someone" has a religous, nor supernatural origin. Its not a reference to the Christian symbol. But back in the mists of time the nonreligious and the religious meanings of "Cross" might have gotten conflated and might have spawned the word "curse". Or not. Ironically you're supposed to make the "sign of the cross" to lift curses, or use crucifixes to fend off curses.

In recent times "curse" got shortened to "cuss". And then the two words drifted apart in meaning slightly. So today there are "curse words" (damn) and there also "cuss words". "Cursing" means "taking the lords name in vain" while "cussing" means "using crude words for bodily functions". But when you hit your finger with a hammer you often do both in the same breath.

Interesting: young people from the Black ghetto I used to work with would use the word "cuss" to mean "express anger"- as in "did the boss cuss you out that time you were late?" They didnt mean literally "did the boss get SO angry that he used profanity on you?" Just that he got angry.

Yeah, the "cross" theory kinda makes sense if you think of the word "crucifixion", a method of slowly torturing people to death by nailing them to a cross. You would just swap the r and u and drop everything after the c, which has an s sound; you would then get "curs", which is how the word was spelled in Old English. A lot of English words have had the letters swap like this, like "bridd" in Old English which swapped the r and i to become "bird"--incidentally, this word also is of unknown origin with no known cognates in any other Germanic language.

NP, the word "cross" is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-, meaning "to cut off", which lends some credence especially with the meaning. Some curses are believed to cut the victim off from something they value dearly such as family.