Banish
Pronunciation
- enPR: băn'Äsh, IPA: /ˈbænɪʃ/
Origin
From Old French banir ("to proclaim, ban, banish") and Old English bannan, Proto-Germanic *bannanÄ… ("curse, forbid"). Compare to French bannir.
Full definition of banish
Verb
- To send someone away and forbid that person from returning.
- (with simple direct object)If you don't stop talking blasphemes, I will banish you.
- (with from)
- 2011, December 15, Felicity Cloake, How to cook the perfect nut roast, The parsnip, stilton and chestnut combination may taste good, but it's not terribly decorative. In fact, dull's the word, a lingering adjectival ghost of nut roasts past that I'm keen to banish from the table.
- He was banished from the kingdom.
- (dated, with out of)
- 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Modern Library 1999, p. 640:For I am banished out of the country of Logris for ever, that is for to say the country of England.
- (archaic, with two simple objects (person and place))
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, II.10:he never referreth any one unto vertue, religion, or conscience: as if they were all extinguished and banished the world ....
- 1796, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Folio Society 1985, p. 190:Then yours she will never be! You are banished her presence; her mother has opened her eyes to your designs, and she is now upon her guard against them.
- To expel, especially from the mind.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 7, … St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.
- banish fear, qualm.