Forbidding

How to spell forbidding

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce forbidding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forbidding mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a stern, hostile or unwelcoming appearance that seems to warn people away.
2. verbPresent participle of forbid: prohibiting or refusing to allow something.

Forbidding in a sentence

• adjective

  The abandoned factory looked dark and forbidding at night.

• verb

  The new policy is forbidding staff from using personal phones at their desks.

• adjective

  His forbidding expression made the new staff nervous about asking questions.

• verb

  The landlord kept forbidding any changes to the wiring in the flat.

Where does forbidding come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows out of the Old English verb forbeodan, which combined the prefix for-, carrying a sense of prohibition or 'against', with beodan, meaning 'to command, proclaim or offer'. The literal idea was to command against something, that is, to prohibit it. The participle 'forbidding' first simply meant 'prohibiting', but by the seventeenth century it had taken on its now familiar figurative life, describing a place, face or atmosphere so unwelcoming that it seemed to warn people away. The root beodan is a close relative of the modern verb 'bid', as in to bid someone welcome, and it shares deep Germanic ancestry with the German verb bieten 'to offer'. The doubled d, the spelling trap here, comes simply from adding -ing to 'forbid', whose single final consonant doubles after a short stressed vowel.

How the word is built

• for- (Old English prefix meaning against, away)
• bid (from biddan, to command or ask)
• -ing (adjectival/participial suffix)