taboo

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a social or cultural prohibition against discussing, using, or doing something

   For many years, public discussion of the illness remained a taboo.

2. 2
   adj

   forbidden, avoided, or unacceptable because of social custom, belief, or strong convention

   Money was a taboo subject in their household.

3. 3
   verb

   to prohibit, exclude, or declare something unfit for use or discussion

   The committee tabooed any mention of the unresolved dispute.

4. 4
   noun

   in Polynesian and other Pacific cultures, a sacred restriction placed on a person, place, object, or action

   Breaking the ritual taboo was believed to endanger the whole community.

Simplified etymology

Taboo, also spelled tabu, was recorded by Captain Cook in Tonga in 1777. The Maori word noa means its opposite.

Borrowed in the late eighteenth century from Tongan tapu, 'sacred, prohibited,' a Polynesian word with cognates across the Pacific. English explorers represented the Tongan p with b in taboo. The word broadened from sacred restrictions to any strong social prohibition or avoided subject.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary