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FORBIDDING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An official prohibition or edict against something
Synonyms:
ban; banning; forbiddance; forbidding
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("forbidding" is a kind of...):
prohibition (refusal to approve or assent to)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "forbidding"):
test ban (a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons that is mutually agreed to by countries that possess nuclear weapons)
Derivation:
forbid (command against)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
Example:
the situation became ugly
Synonyms:
baleful; forbidding; menacing; minacious; minatory; ominous; sinister; threatening
Classified under:
Similar:
alarming (frightening because of an awareness of danger)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance
Example:
undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
unpleasant (offensive or disagreeable; causing discomfort or unhappiness)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb forbid
Context examples:
The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The spotted owl gained national prominence in the United States during the 1990s, when environmentalists' efforts to preserve its habitat resulted in federal measures forbidding logging on large swaths of land, as well as federal limits on the sales of harvested wood.
(Researchers find preserving spotted owl habitat may not require a tradeoff with wildfire risk after all, Wikinews)
He looked to the south and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake; also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic Circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
It had come, at last, love had come, when I least expected it and under the most forbidding conditions.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I know, no active enemies.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
If she had only made me a formal courtesy, for instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way—you know what I mean—if I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave it all up in despair.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Mounted upon a horse as large, as black, and as forbidding as himself, he cantered slowly forward, with none of those prancings and gambades with which a cavalier was accustomed to show his command over his charger.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
