ban
Forms
- present (v1)
- ban
- past (v2)
- banned
- past participle (v3)
- banned
- present participle
- banning
- 3rd person singular
- bans
- Plural
- bans
Definitions
1.To prohibit; to interdict; to proscribe; to forbid or block from participation.
- Bare feet are banned in this establishment.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags, regardless of thickness.
2.To curse; to execrate.
- They will curse and ban[…]even into the deep pit of hell, all that gainsay their appetite.
3.To curse; to utter curses or maledictions.
4.To anathematize; to pronounce an ecclesiastical curse upon; to place under a ban.
1.A prohibition.
- California has been on the forefront of plastic bag bans. In 2007, Mr. Newsom, as mayor of San Francisco, signed a law that made the city the first in the nation to ban plastic bags in grocery stores.
2.A public proclamation or edict; also, a summons by public proclamation, and in early use especially a summons to arms.
- Bans is common and ordinary amongst the Feudists, and signifies a proclamation, or any publike notice.
3.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.
- The act of calling together the vassals in armed array, was entitled “convoking the ban”, “convoquer le ban.”
- France was at such a Pinch for Men, […] that they call’d their Ban and Arriere Ban, the assembling whereof had been long disus’ed, and in a Manner antiquated.
- The ban was sometimes convoked, that is, the possessors of the fiefs were called upon for military service in subsequent ages; but with more of ostentation than real efficiency.
4.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.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3231
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
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”).