Emily Dickinson Lexicon

EX-COM-MU-NI-CA'TION, n.

The act of ejecting from a church; expulsion from the communion of a church, and deprivation of its rights, privileges and advantages; an ecclesiastical penalty or punishment inflicted on offenders. Excommunication is an ecclesiastical interdict, of two kinds, the lesser and the greater; the lesser excommunication is a separation or suspension of the offender from partaking of the eucharist; the greater is an absolute separation and exclusion of the offender from the church and all its rights and advantages. Encyc.