Forbids

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To impose a ban that prevents individuals from engaging in certain actions or behaviors based on authority or rules
2. To establish a rule that disallows specific behaviors or actions that individuals might wish to pursue
3. Prevents someone from doing something by official rule or authority

Etymology: "Forbids" is the third-person singular form of "forbid", so the story belongs to the verb itself. Its root is a notable pairing: the "for-" here is not the prefix meaning "before" but an older element meaning "away" or "from", which gives the sense of pushing something away. The second part, "bid", originally meant "to offer" or "to proclaim" rather than the modern sense of making a bid at an auction or asking someone to do something. The verb descends from Old English "forbēodan", which combined that "away" element with "bēodan" and carried a wide range of meanings: to prohibit, restrain, refuse, and even repeal or annul. The sense of formal prohibition was one of several. Its close cousins across Germanic languages show the same pattern, including German "verbieten" and Dutch "verbieden", so the idea of proclaiming something out of bounds is a shared inheritance. Its relative "forbode", which once meant to foretell or announce in advance, shows the same "bid" root taking a different direction. The two words share ancestry, yet one ended up describing prohibitions and the other omens.

Synonyms: prohibits, bans, restricts

Antonyms: allows, permits