Definition
verbTo prohibit; to interdict; to proscribe; to forbid or block from participation.
verbTo summon; to call out.
Sentence Examples
The local school board would go to any length to ban that book.
There are movements to try to ban TV advertising.
A ban was imposed on the use of chemical weapons.
Word Origin & History
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 भनति (bhánati), Armenian բան (ban) and perhaps Albanian banoj (“to reside, dwell”). See also banal, abandon.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"To whom the goodly earth and air Are banned"
— 1816, Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon:
"Jailing her on Wednesday, magistrate Liz Clyne told Robins: "You have shown little remorse either for the death of the kitten or the trauma to your former friend Sarah Knutton." She was also banned from keeping animals for 10 years."
— 2011 December 14, Steven Morris, “Devon woman jailed for 168 days for killing kitten in microwave”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 20 Mar 2022:
"No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again."
— 2013 August 10, “A new prescription”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848, archived from the original on 09 Mar 2023:
"Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation on Sunday banning the sale at grocery checkouts of all plastic bags, regardless of thickness."
— 2024 September 23, Soumya Karlamangla, “California Bans All Plastic Bags After Its First Effort Backfired”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 07 Oct 2024:
"They will curse and ban[…]even into the deep pit of hell, all that gainsay their appetite."
— c. 1555, Hugh Latimer, a sermon