Banned

How to spell banned

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce banned

What does banned mean?

1. verbPast tense of 'ban': officially forbade or prohibited something.

Banned in a sentence

• The council banned smoking in all public buildings.

• The referee banned the player for three matches after the foul.

Where does banned come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'ban', which traces back to the Old English verb 'bannan', meaning 'to summon, to command, or to proclaim publicly'. The sense narrowed over the centuries from a public proclamation to a proclamation of prohibition, helped along by the related Old Norse 'banna', which already carried the meaning 'to curse or forbid'. The same root once produced 'banns', the public announcement of an intended marriage still read in churches today, which preserves the original 'proclaim' meaning. Because the base verb ends in a single short vowel plus 'n', the final consonant doubles when '-ed' is added, giving the spelling 'banned' rather than 'baned', and that doubled 'n' is exactly what separates it from the unrelated noun 'band'.

How the word is built

• ban (to prohibit)
• -ned (past tense/past participle, with doubled n)

Words that sound like banned

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• band: A group of musicians who perform together.