Curse three different articles by old lady (8)
I believe the answer is:
anathema
'curse' is the definition.
(anathema can mean a curse)
'three different articles by old lady' is the wordplay.
'three different' becomes 'an' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'articles' becomes 'athe' (two examples of the part-of-speech: a+the).
'by' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'old lady' becomes 'ma' (both can mean mother).
'an'+'athe'+'ma'='ANATHEMA'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for anathema that I've seen before include "B?te noire, hated thing" , "Execration" , "Abomination, bugbear" , "One hated" , "Someone or something that is detested" .)