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Definition 2024

maledicta pl ‎(plural only)

Profane language of all kinds.
- 2007, Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature‎, page 340:
  We see this in the third commandment, in the popularity of ****, damn, God, and Jesus Christ, and in many of the terms for taboo language itself: profanity (that which is not sacred), blasphemy (literally "evil speech" but in practice disrespect toward a deity), and swearing, cursing, and oaths, which were originally secured by the invocation of a deity or one of his symbols, like the tabernacle, chalice, and wafer incongruously found in Catholic maledicta.

maledicta