adjure

\uh-JOOR\

verb

1 : to command solemnly under or as if under oath or penalty of a curse 2 : to urge or advise earnestly

I immediately confused ADJURE with the word with adjourn, to suspend or postpone to a later time, or indefinitely—as in, the court is adjourned. Not so. I think I saw the word oath and went for it. Apparently this word aims to confound, since Merriam warns me TWICE not to confuse ADJURE with the closely related ABjure, meaning to renounce or abstain from. I'm all mixed up.

My favorite part of the above definition: "penalty of a curse." A gypsy's ultimatum. I wonder how often the average person gets commanded under these conditions? When I do a google search for "gypsy curse," the first website I find is a Yahoo! Answers page posing the question: How to break a gypsy curse? Here's the solution:

In the book Death and Destruction, there's a spell for protection you could use. You need to get some conjure formulas called Fiery Wall of Protection -- you get the oil, and either the powder or the bath salt. You draw a bath and put some of the Fiery Wall powder or salt into it, and you also dress four small white candles with the oil and position them around the corners of the bathtub. You light them, and you get into the tub and let them burn down. This makes a "wall of protection" and, also, it washes away any existing jinx you may have had.

Hm. But seriously, I don't want to fuck with any gypsies. Have you read Thinner? That shit is messed up.

Curse is actually a really interesting concept in that, like luck, it exists only inside one's perception to explain the repetitive occurrence of negative events. To ADJURE suddenly seems like an act of negative reinforcement— a "take out the trash or I'll render you barren" sort of thing. How sneaky. ADJURE is like a threat that goes without saying; the idea behind the phrase: If I were you I wouldn't do that. Some heavy-handed advice with the implication of negative repercussions.

This word turned out to be heftier than I thought.