From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishexcommunicateex‧com‧mu‧ni‧cate /ˌekskəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ verb [transitive] RRCto punish someone by no longer allowing them to be a member of the Roman Catholic church —excommunication /ˌekskəmjuːnɪˈkeɪʃən/ noun [countable, uncountable]→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
excommunicate• One influential local bishop warned that women who sought abortion would be excommunicated.• The second excommunicated all clergy who did homage to laymen for ecclesiastical possessions, as well as those who associated with them afterwards.• You'd have us excommunicated and hanged inside a month.• They say that local field workers now worry about being excommunicated by the Church.• If Miguel were excommunicated, Careta would probably turn his back on him if he saw him on the street.• He was excommunicated from the Pack.• When Ambrose heard of this he excommunicated Theodosius and refused to give him the sacraments until he had done public penance.Origin excommunicate (1400-1500) Late Latin past participle of excommunicare, from communicare; → COMMUNICATE 