Banish

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈbænɪʃ/

Definitions

1. To expel someone from a place or community, often as a penalty ; to send someone away permanently as a form of punishment or exile
2. Forcibly remove a person from a location or social group ; impose a lifelong exile on someone as a legal or social penalty
3. Exclude or drive out an individual from a group or area ; officially order someone to leave and never return as a punishment

Etymology: "Banish" is a close cousin of "ban," and the two words share a proclamation at their root. In early Germanic speech, the root meant something like "to summon" or "to order," and it passed through Frankish into Old French as "banir," meaning to proclaim or to ban. A lord's proclamation could cast a person out of the community, so driving someone away became the core sense. Middle English took the verb in the form "banishen," and the modern spelling settled from there. The same ancestry gave English "ban" through a different branch, which is why the two words look and sound alike while meaning slightly different things. French, Portuguese, and Italian all keep the parallel verb, with "bannir," "banir," and "bandire" sharing its Latin ancestor "banniō."

Synonyms: exile, expel, dismiss, remove, oust

Antonyms: welcome, accept, retain, admit, invite