forban

English

Etymology

From Middle English forbannen, partly from Middle English for- + bannen, equivalent to for- +‎ ban; and partly from Old French forbenir (“to banish”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian ferbonne (“to banish”), West Frisian ferbanne (“to banish”), Dutch verbannen (“to banish”), German Low German verbannen (“to banish”), German verbannen (“to banish”), Swedish förbanna (“to curse, damn”).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æn

Verb

forban (third-person singular simple present forbans, present participle forbanning, simple past and past participle forbanned)

1. (transitive, rare, archaic, poetic or obsolete) To exile; banish.
   • 1876, James John Garth Wilkinson, On Human Science: Good and Evil, and on Divine Revelation:

     That lower down it constitutes correspondential phytostatics, or pressure of vegetable life, grasping matter close with prolonged human fingers in the trees, and forbanning materialism from the very stones.

   • 1918, Clark Ashton Smith, "Satan Unrepentant" (also on page 295 of the 2014 collection The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies):

     Lost from those archangelic thrones that star,

     Fadeless and fixed, heaven's light of azure bliss;

     Forbanned of all His splendor and depressed

     Beyond the birth of the first sun, and lower

     Than the last star's decline

   • 2013, Daniel Lord Smail, The Consumption of Justice:

     Kenneth Meredith has noted that the coutumiers of northern France "usually called for the confiscation of the property of both executed criminals and persons who had been forbanned."

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French fourban, from Old French forsban, forban (“pirate, privateer, banishment”), deverbal of forbenir (“to banish, to exile”), from Frankish *frabannijan (“to ban, banish”), from Proto-Germanic *fra- + *bannijaną (“to request, damn, curse”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to say, pronounce”). Cognate with Dutch verbannen (“to outcast, banish, exile”), German verbannen (“to banish, exile”), Norwegian forbanne (“to curse”). More at for-, ban.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fɔʁ.bɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

forban m (plural forbans)

1. (archaic) pirate
2. rogue, scoundrel; an unscrupulous individual capable of any wrongdoing

Synonyms

• bandit
• corsaire
• crapule
• flibustier
• gredin
• pirate

Further reading

• “forban”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Old French

Etymology

Deverbal of forbanir, from Frankish *frabannan.

Noun

forban oblique singular, m (oblique plural forbans, nominative singular forbans, nominative plural forban)

1. banishment (state of being banished)

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (forban)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French forban.

Noun

forban m (plural forbani)

1. pirate

Declension