Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Taboo   /tæbˈu/   Listen
Taboo

adjective
(Written also tabu and tapu)
1.
Excluded from use or mention.  Synonyms: forbidden, out, prohibited, proscribed, tabu, verboten.  "In our house dancing and playing cards were out" , "A taboo subject"
2.
Forbidden to profane use especially in South Pacific islands.  Synonym: tabu.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Taboo" Quotes from Famous Books



... by bringing into activity the various motives which affect most powerfully the different individu- als. There should be a universal taboo on horse racing and all forms of gambling. Even "side lines'' should be completely discouraged. Some individuals are so hindered by the ordinary and necessary distractions of business that special protection should be granted ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... dead. Each of them had a roofed habitation, but neither could employ it for the ends of love. No. 8 was barred to George as much by his own dignity as by the invisible sword of the old man; and of course he could not break the immemorial savage taboo of a club by introducing a girl into it. The Duke of Wellington himself, though Candle Court was his purdah, could never have broken the taboo of even so modest a club as Pickering's. Owing to the absence of Agg, who had gone to Wales with part of ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... She was condemned in no small still voice as immoral, loose, scandalous; and writer after writer, leaving her unread, reiterated the charge till it passed into a byword of criticism, and her works were practically taboo in literature, a type and summary of all that was worst and foulest in Restoration days. The absurdities and falsity or this extreme are of course patent now, and it was ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... century the taboo prevailed. Certain subjects were rarely mentioned in public, and then only in euphemistic terms. The home, the church, the school; and the press joined in the conspiracy. Supposedly, they were keeping the young in a blessed state of innocence. As a matter of fact, other agencies ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... fallen to the ground here—who can say; or the stinging ants have made a home. That tree beyond is taboo to the little people, and we also will ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... he responded, and he left the palm room with head down- bent, as if he were already pondering the problem, the solving of which was to free him from the self-imposed taboo ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... relieved and triumphant as an obstetrician after a hard case, and meekly handed over to Dinkie anything his Royal Highness desired, even to his fifth cookie and the entire contents of my sewing-basket, which under ordinary circumstances is strictly taboo. But once the ear-passage was clear the pain went away, and Dinkie, at the end of a couple of hours, was ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... must have been a warning given once: No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly, To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes Into this mounded sward and rumple it; All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil.— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... "Under what strange taboo am I placed?" said he, gayly, as he laid his hand on her shrinking arm. "I inquire for Helen,—she is ill, and cannot see me. I come to sun myself in your presence, and you fly me as if gods and men had set their mark on my brow. Child! child! what is this? ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... fonder of their own society than women are. Men delight to breakfast together, to take luncheon together, to dine together, to sup together. They rejoice in clubs devoted exclusively to their service, as much taboo to women as a trappist monastery. Women are not quite so clannish. There are not very many women's clubs in the world; it is not certain that those which do exist are very brilliant or very entertaining. Women seldom ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... made the fool a duke, in hope With Heaven's taboo to palter; Then told a priest, who told the Pope, Who ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the still-room—drenches that smelt pestilently and tasted worse. She stood over Kim till they went down, and inquired exhaustively after they had come up. She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and enforced it by means of an armed man. It is true he was seventy odd, that his scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt; but he represented the authority of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants, calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a wide ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... These "gamals" are a kind of club-house, where the men spend the day and occasionally the night. In rainy weather they sit round the fire, smoking, gossiping and working on some tool,—a club or a fine basket. Each clan has its own gamal, which is strictly taboo for the women, and to each gamal belongs a dancing-ground like the one described. On Vao there are five, corresponding to ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... there are many things better kept out of the brine. Cabbage and cauliflower for example do not need it—green tomatoes, onions, and Jerusalem artichokes are likewise taboo. The artichokes make good pickle, but it must be made all at once. Cut anything intended for the brine with a bit of stalk, and without bruising the stalk. Cucumbers should be small, and even in size, ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... after the Bladder Feast during the December moon. By the Yukon tribes it is repeated just before the opening of spring. During the day of the festival a taboo is placed on all work in the village, particularly that done with any sharp pointed tool which might wound some wandering ghost and bring retribution ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes

... heavens. "He is no god—Aole ia he Akua—" they say, "he is a man like us, yet in his nature and appearance godlike. And he was the first-born of us; he was greatly beloved by our parents; to him was given superhuman power—ka mana—which we have not.... Only his taboo rank remains, Therefore fear not; when he comes you will see that he is only a man like us." It is such a character, born of godlike ancestors and inheriting through the favor of this god, or some member of his family group, godlike power or mana, generally in some particular form, who appears ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... would start from the reading desk at which he stood and fall to the points of that vast waistcoat which inspired the description of him as "a fellow of infinite vest." It would wander aimlessly a moment about his—stomach is a word that is taboo among the polite English—equator, and then shift swiftly to the rear until the thumb found the hip pocket. There the hand would rest a moment, to return again to the reading desk and to describe ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the time that Holland was overrun by the armies of the French republic, a French general, surrounded by his whole etat major, who had come from Amsterdam to view the wonders of Broek, applied for admission at one of these taboo'd portals. The reply was that the owner never received any one who did not come introduced by some friend. "Very well," said the general, "take my compliments to your master, and tell him I will return here to-morrow with a company ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... negotiations aside, Anna and myself had a mighty good time in Vienna (I forgot to say that Emperor Francis Joseph agreed with me that Danilo and Alexander were quite impossible and that henceforth Balkan marriages should be taboo). ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer



Words linked to "Taboo" :   preconception, prejudice, restrict, sacred, inhibition, Polynesia, impermissible, bias



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com