English Reference
verb · noun

forbidding

v. · n.
US /fɝˈbɪdɪŋ/ UK /fəbˈɪdɪŋ/ for·bid·ding

  1. 01 B2 Upper Intermediate

    v.the act of telling someone they are not allowed to do something.

    v.the present participle of 'forbid', indicating the act of refusing to allow something or ordering someone not to do something.

    Simple

    The school is forbidding students from using their phones during the lunch break.

    In context

    By forbidding the publication of the report, the government inadvertently drew more public attention to the controversy it sought to hide.

    banningprohibitingdisallowing
  2. 02 C2 Proficiency Formal

    n.the act of making a rule that stops something from happening.

    n.the act of prohibiting or the state of being prohibited; a formal command that stays an action.

    Simple

    The forbidding of traditional ceremonies led to a lot of anger in the local community.

    In context

    The strict forbidding of any outside contact ensured that the experimental group remained entirely isolated from external variables.

    prohibitionbaninterdiction

I heard Strawberry Fields Forever and it just melted me.” But for all his creativity and spiritual questing, his reputation is as forbidding as his basslines.

The Guardian· 19 Aug 2026

Creative Assembly appears well placed to repeat the trick with Alien: Isolation 2’s forbidding colony world, home to a remote Weyland-Yutani outpost, Kurosaki Station.

The Guardian· 14 Aug 2026

By surface analysis, forbid + -ing.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry
Level C1 · Advanced
Frequency Occasional
Updated