Forbid
verbTo order someone not to do something, or to refuse to allow something.
How to spell forbid
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce forbid
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does forbid mean?
- verbTo order someone not to do something, or to refuse to allow something.
Forbid in a sentence
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Company policy can forbid staff from accepting gifts.
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The landlord may forbid tenants to keep pets in the flat.
Where does forbid come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word descends directly from the Old English forbeodan, a compound of the prefix for-, which here carries a sense of prohibition or 'against', and the verb beodan, meaning 'to command, announce, or offer'. The literal force was therefore 'to command against', which is exactly how the modern meaning of refusing permission grew. The base verb beodan is the same ancestor that gave us 'bid' in the sense of bidding someone do something, and it is a close cousin of German 'verbieten', which still means to forbid today. Because the word is native Germanic rather than borrowed from Latin or French, its spelling stayed short and plain, with no silent letters or doubled consonants to trip writers up. The single trap to remember is that it ends in one 'd', not two, since the stress falls on the second syllable.
How the word is built
- for- (prohibitive prefix meaning 'against')
- bid (from Old English beodan: to command, offer)
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