banish

From Middle English banysshen, from Old French banir (“to proclaim, ban, banish”) and Old English bannan, from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“curse, forbid”). Compare to French bannir.

• enPR: băn'ĭsh, IPA^(key): /ˈbænɪʃ/

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• Rhymes: -ænɪʃ

banish (third-person singular simple present banishes, present participle banishing, simple past and past participle banished)

1. (heading) To send someone away and forbid that person from returning.

   He was banished from the kingdom for his crimes.

   • 2011 December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, in Guardian:

     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.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes , London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:
     , 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, published 1985, page 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.

2. To expel, especially from the mind.

   to banish fear; to banish a qualm

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     […] 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.

• banishment

• “banish”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “banish”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “banish”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• Bhasin, Bishan, ash-bin, ashbin, bash in, bashin', nisbah