Banning

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈbænɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The process of formally outlawing certain practices or items through authoritative measures
2. The action of making specific behaviors or substances illegal or off-limits by legal means
3. The act of officially forbidding or restricting something through legal or authoritative orders

Etymology: "Banning" is a verbal form of "ban," and its history runs back to an old word for a public proclamation. "Ban" entered English from Old Norse "bann," meaning a proclamation or prohibition, and the Old Norse word itself carried the sense of a solemn public command backed by penalty. Over time the notion of a formal order turned into the idea of forbidding something outright, which is the sense now used when a government or institution makes a practice illegal. The form itself is straightforward: it comes from Middle English "banning" or "bannyng," built from "ban" plus the "-ing" ending that turns a verb into a noun of action. Its cousins in Dutch "banning" and West Frisian "banning" show the same pattern, pointing to a shared Germanic inheritance of the idea of public prohibition.

Synonyms: prohibiting, forbidding, restricting