commination \kom-uh-NAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. A denunciation.
2. A threat of punishment.
Vishnevskaya's powerful story is full of ferocious, grandly operatic comminations of vicious authorities and toadying colleagues.
-- Terry Teachout, review of Galina: A Russian Story by Galina Vishnevskaya, National Review, March 22, 1985
At last the leaders of the Democratic Party have moved decisively, hauling out their ripest comminations and hurling them at -- no, not at George Bush.
-- Alexander Cockburn, "No place in the Democratic Party", The Nation, March 31, 2003
An early copy had been seen by Anne Fine, our retiring Children's Laureate, and, as one of her final acts..., she issued a commination against it in the Guardian newspaper, buttressed by many spicy quotations.
-- Brian Alderson, "Message in a bottle", Horn Book Magazine, September 1, 2003
Commination is derived from Latin comminatio, commination-, from comminari, "to threaten," from com-, intensive prefix + minari, "to threaten."
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