Also 5 excomunycacion. [ad. late L. excommūnicātiōn-em, f. excommūnicāre: see prec. and -ATION. Cf. F. excommunication.] The action of excommunicating or cutting off from fellowship.
1. Eccl. The action of excluding an offending Christian from the communion of the Church; the state or fact of being so excluded. Also in wider sense: The exclusion of an offending member from any religious community, e.g., Jewish or heathen.
The Canon Law recognizes two kinds of excommunication: the lesser, by which an offender is deprived of the right to participate in the sacraments; the greater, by which he is cut off from all communication with the church or its members.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VI. clxiv. 168. This to be obseruyd vpon payne of excomunycacion.
1555. Eden, Decades, 172. We furthermore streightly inhibite all maner of persons … vnder the peyne of the sentence of excommunication … to trauayle for marchaundies.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., III. xlii. 276. This part of the Power of the Keyes, by which men were thrust out from the Kingdom of God, is that which is called Excommunication.
a. 1744. Pope, Love of the World Reproved. A part in every swine No friend … May taste … On pain of excommunication.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. 34. A sentence of excommunication was pronounced, which enjoined Ambrose to depart from Milan without delay.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. iii. 192. Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions.
b. transf.
1830. Hood, Haunted H., I. iii. A house—but under some prodigious ban Of Excommunication. Ibid. (1840), Up the Rhine, 16. The yellow flag which indicates that sanitary excommunication [quarantine].
1873. F. Hall, Mod. Eng., 34. He calls you a utilitarian. The greater excommunication being thus denounced against you.
2. Short for ‘sentence of excommunication.’
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., II. (1843), I. 43/2. To restrain any excommunication from being pronounced … without the approbation of the bishop.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. lvi. 366. By some acts of rapine or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal excommunication.
1866. Kingsley, Herew., I. vii. 188. The Pope … fulminated againt Baldwin the excommunication destined for him who stole a widow for his wife.
3. (See quot.)
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The rule of the Benedictines gives the name Excommunication, to the being excluded from the oratory, and the common table of the house.
