prohibit

English

Etymology

From Middle English prohibiten, from Latin prohibeō (“I fend off, prevent, prohibit”) (through past participle prohibitus).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈhɪbɪt/, /pɹəʊˈhɪbɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈhɪbɪt/, /pɹəˈhɪbət/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪbɪt

Verb

prohibit (third-person singular simple present prohibits, present participle prohibiting, simple past and past participle prohibited)

1. (transitive) To forbid, disallow, or proscribe officially; to make illegal or illicit.

   Synonyms: ban, disallow, forbid, proscribe

   Antonyms: allow, authorize, permit

   The restaurant prohibits smoking on the patio.

   I was prohibited to come.

   • 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

     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.

   • 2021 December 20, Oren Liebermann and Barbara Starr, “Pentagon defines prohibited behavior in effort to tackle extremism”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     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.”

   • 2024 April 11, Jennifer Hansler, “USAID administrator says it is ‘credible’ to assess famine is already occurring in parts of Gaza”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     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.”

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:prohibit

Related terms

• prohibition
• prohibitive

Translations

to proscribe officially

• Arabic: مَنَعَ (ar) (manaʕa)
• Belarusian: забараня́ць impf (zabaranjácʹ), забарані́ць pf (zabaranícʹ)
• Bulgarian: забранявам (bg) (zabranjavam)
• Catalan: prohibir (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 禁止 (zh) (jìnzhǐ), 阻止 (zh) (zǔzhǐ)

• Cornish: difen
• Czech: zakazovat (cs) impf, zakázat (cs) pf
• Dutch: verbieden (nl)
• Esperanto: malpermesi
• Fataluku: pacu
• Finnish: kieltää (fi)
• French: interdire (fr), prohiber (fr)
• Galician: prohibir (gl), banir, enfensar, devedar, coutar, toller (gl), privar (gl), entredicir
• German: verbieten (de)
• Greek: απαγορεύω (el) (apagorévo)
• Hungarian: megtilt (hu), tilt (hu)
• Irish: urghair (literary), coisc
• Italian: proibire (it), impedire (it), ostacolare (it), vietare (it)
• Japanese: 禁じる (ja) (kinjiru), 禁止する (ja) (kinshi suru)
• Korean: 금하다 (ko) (geumhada)
• Lao: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: prohibeō (la), interdīcō, vetō
• Latvian: aizliegt (lv)
• Luxembourgish: verbidden
• Makasae: bandu
• Malayalam: നിരോധിക്കുക (ml) (nirōdhikkuka), വിലക്കുക (ml) (vilakkuka)
• Maori: rāhui, whakamanakore
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: forby

  Nynorsk: forby, forbyde

• Old English: forbēodan
• Polish: zakazywać (pl) impf, zakazać (pl) pf
• Portuguese: proibir (pt)
• Quechua: amatay
• Romanian: interzice (ro)
• Russian: запреща́ть (ru) impf (zapreščátʹ), запрети́ть (ru) pf (zapretítʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: забрањи́вати impf, забра́нити pf

  Roman: zabranjívati (sh) impf, zabrániti (sh) pf

• Spanish: prohibir (es)
• Swedish: förbjuda (sv)
• Tetum: bandu
• Thai: ห้าม (th) (hâam)
• Ukrainian: забороня́ти impf (zaboronjáty), заборони́ти pf (zaboronýty)

See also

• interdict
• debar
• prevent
• hinder

Further reading

• “prohibit”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “prohibit”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central) [pɾu.iˈβit]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencia) [pɾo.iˈbit]
• Rhymes: -it

Adjective

prohibit (feminine prohibida, masculine plural prohibits, feminine plural prohibides)

1. forbidden, outlawed

Participle

prohibit (feminine prohibida, masculine plural prohibits, feminine plural prohibides)

1. past participle of prohibir

Romanian

Etymology

Past participle of prohibi.

Adjective

prohibit m or n (feminine singular prohibită, masculine plural prohibiți, feminine and neuter plural prohibite)

1. prohibited

Declension

Declension of prohibit

		singular				plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine		masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	prohibit		prohibită		prohibiți	prohibite
	definite	prohibitul		prohibita		prohibiții	prohibitele
genitive- dative	indefinite	prohibit		prohibite		prohibiți	prohibite
	definite	prohibitului		prohibitei		prohibiților	prohibitelor