ban
/ˈbæn/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms bans banning banned bani
- verb (transitive) To prohibit; to interdict; to proscribe; to forbid or block from participation. “Bare feet are banned in this establishment.”
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To summon; to call out.
- verb (transitive) To anathematize; to pronounce an ecclesiastical curse upon; to place under a ban.
- verb (transitive) To curse; to execrate.
- verb (ambitransitive) To curse; to utter curses or maledictions.
- noun A prohibition.
- noun A public proclamation or edict; also, a summons by public proclamation, and in early use especially a summons to arms.
- noun The gathering of the (French) king’s vassals for war; the whole body of vassals assembled this way, or liable to be summoned; originally the same as arriere-ban, but distinct since the 16th century, following French usage—see arriere-ban.
- noun (obsolete) A curse or anathema.
- noun A pecuniary mulct or penalty laid upon a delinquent for offending against a ban, such as a mulct paid to a bishop by one guilty of sacrilege or other crimes.
- noun A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Romanian leu.
- noun A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Moldovan leu.
- noun A unit measuring information or entropy based on base-ten logarithms, rather than the base-two logarithms that define the bit.
- noun A title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
forbid prohibit disallow ditl hartley prohibition proscription banning forbiddance forbidding Bachelor of Arts in Nursing censor banish ostracize ostracise shun cast out blackball
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English bannen (“to summon; to banish; to curse”), partly from Old English bannan (“to summon, command, proclaim, call out”), from Proto-West Germanic *bannan; and partly from Old Norse banna (“to prohibit; to curse”), both from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“to proclaim, to order; to summon; to ban; to curse, forbid”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰh₂-new-ti ~ bʰh₂-n̥w-énti, innovative nasal-infixed zero-grade athematic present of *bʰeh₂- (“to say”).
Cognate with Dutch bannen (“to ban, exile, discard”), German bannen (“to exile, to exorcise, captivate, excommunicate”), Swedish banna (“to ban, scold”), Vedic Sanskrit भन॑ति (bhánati), Armenian բան (ban) and perhaps Albanian banoj (“to reside, dwell”). See also banal, abandon.
Borrowed from Romanian ban of uncertain origin, perhaps from Serbo-Croatian bân.
From Banburismus; coined by Alan Turing.
From South Slavic (compare Serbo-Croatian bȃn), from Proto-Slavic *banъ; see there for more.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A public proclamation or edict; a public order or notice, mandatory or prohibitory; a summons by public proclamation.
- noun A calling together of the king's (esp. the French king's) vassals for military service; also, the body of vassals thus assembled or summoned. In present usage, in France and Prussia, the most effective part of the population liable to military duty and not in the standing army.
- verb To curse; to invoke evil upon. Sir W. Scott.
- verb To forbid; to interdict. Byron.
Etymology [AS. bann command, edict; akin to D. ban, Icel. bann, Dan. band, OHG. ban, G. bann, a public proclamation, as of interdiction or excommunication, Gr. to say, L. fari to speak, Skr. bhan to speak; cf. F. ban, LL. bannum, of G. origin. Abandon, Fame.]
Etymology [OE. bannen, bannien, to summon, curse, AS. bannan to summon; akin to Dan. bande, forbande, to curse, Sw. banna to revile, bannas to curse. See Ban an edict, and cf. Banish.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ban”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details