excommunication

/ˌɛkskəmˌjunəˈkeɪʃən/

Other forms: excommunications

The noun excommunication is a formal way of describing what happens when someone gets kicked out of his or her church, for good.

Excommunication is really a kind of banishment, a punishment that's handed out by a church when one of its members breaks some important church rule. The Latin root is excommunicare, meaning "put out of the community," which is just what happens when a person is excommunicated. The term is used most often in churches whose traditions include the concept of communion, as another Latin meaning of excommunication is "to expel from communion."

Definitions of excommunication

1. noun

   the act of banishing a member of a church from the communion of believers and the privileges of the church; cutting a person off from a religious society
   synonyms: excision

   type of:

   banishment, proscription

   rejection by means of an act of banishing or proscribing someone
2. noun

   the state of being excommunicated
   synonyms: censure, exclusion

   type of:

   rejection

   the state of being rejected