Tabooing

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

  1. The act of declaring or treating something as forbidden or prohibited by social or cultural norms, thereby deeming it unacceptable to discuss or engage with ; the process of imposing strong social restrictions on behaviors, topics, or objects considered inappropriate or sacred ; the practice of marking certain subjects or actions as off-limits to maintain community standards and avoid offense
  2. The process of socially banning or forbidding certain topics, words, or practices due to cultural or moral prohibitions ; the enforcement of restrictions that render specific behaviors or discussions unacceptable or stigmatized in a group ; the act of labeling actions or ideas as inappropriate or not to be acknowledged publicly to preserve ethical or traditional values
  3. The action of designating certain things as impermissible or off-limits within a culture, thereby preventing open discussion or participation ; the establishment of prohibitions that exclude particular subjects or habits from acceptance or common use ; the imposition of social or moral rules that forbid certain expressions or conduct to uphold shared communal beliefs

Etymology: The word arrived in English from Tongan, the language of the Pacific islands, where "tapu" meant "prohibited" or "sacred". Captain James Cook's voyages brought it to European attention in the late 1700s, and the first recorded use in English dates to around 1777. Europeans heard the Tongan "p" as a "b", which is why the English form ends up with "b" rather than "p". In Tongan and other Polynesian languages, the idea was about setting something apart: a person, place, or object that was forbidden to touch or approach, often because of its sacred status or the power it held. The English sense narrowed and shifted over the following centuries, so that the word came to describe the social prohibition of a topic rather than of a physical thing. The verb form, "to taboo", is an English development from the noun, and "tabooing" is its ongoing form, used when people are actively avoiding or forbidding a particular subject.

Synonyms: forbidding, prohibiting, banning, disallowing, restricting

Antonyms: allowing, permitting, approving, endorsing, accepting