prohibit
verbUK /pɹəˈhɪbɪt/ · CA, US /pɹoʊˈhɪbɪt/
Etymology From Middle English prohibiten, from Latin prohibeō (“to fend off, prevent, prohibit”) (through past participle prohibitus).
1
To forbid, disallow, or proscribe officially; to make illegal or illicit.
- The restaurant prohibits smoking on the patio.
- I was prohibited to come.
4 more examples
- Crossing the border without permission is prohibited.
- In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:
- Like the previous rules, the new guidance doesn’t prohibit membership in an extremist organization, but officials said it makes it very difficult to participate. […] For years, the Defense Department relied on a nebulous definition of extremist activity that listed it among a wide array of prohibited behavior. […] “It’s threading a very fine needle when we’re engaging in prohibiting conduct that may be protected by the First Amendment,” said one official. “There’s always going to be this balancing that goes on.”2021 December 20, Oren Liebermann and Barbara Starr, “Pentagon defines prohibited behavior in effort to tackle extremism”, in CNN:
- The Foreign Assistance Act bars assistance to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”2024 April 11, Jennifer Hansler, “USAID administrator says it is ‘credible’ to assess famine is already occurring in parts of Gaza”, in CNN:
- Synonyms
- prohibit, ban, banish, bar, criminalize, debar, disallow, enjoin, estop, forbid, forspeak, foresnaffle, interdict, outlaw, proscribe, taboo, veto, forfend
- Antonyms
- admit, allow, approve, authorize, consent, let, permit, ratify, sanction, suffer, tolerate, warrant
- Derived terms
- prohibitable, prohibiter, prohibitin, prohibitory, reprohibit
- Related terms
- prohibition, prohibitive, interdict, debar, prevent, hinder
- Hyponyms
- shut out