English Dictionary |
BANISH
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
IPA (US): |
Dictionary entry overview: What does banish mean?
• BANISH (verb)
The verb BANISH has 4 senses:
1. expel from a community or group
2. ban from a place of residence, as for punishment
3. expel, as if by official decree
Familiarity information: BANISH used as a verb is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
Conjugation: |
Past simple: banished
Past participle: banished
-ing form: banishing
Sense 1
Meaning:
Expel from a community or group
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Synonyms:
ban; banish; blackball; cast out; ostracise; ostracize; shun
Hypernyms (to "banish" is one way to...):
expel; kick out; throw out (force to leave or move out)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s somebody
Derivation:
banishment (the state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent))
Sense 2
Meaning:
Ban from a place of residence, as for punishment
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Synonyms:
ban; banish
Hypernyms (to "banish" is one way to...):
expel; kick out; throw out (force to leave or move out)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "banish"):
rusticate (send to the country)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s somebody
Sense 3
Meaning:
Expel, as if by official decree
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Synonyms:
Context example:
he was banished from his own country
Hypernyms (to "banish" is one way to...):
expel; kick out; throw out (force to leave or move out)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "banish"):
spike (stand in the way of)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody PP
Derivation:
banishment (rejection by means of an act of banishing or proscribing someone)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Drive away
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Context example:
banish gloom
Hypernyms (to "banish" is one way to...):
chase away; dispel; drive away; drive off; drive out; run off; turn back (force to go away; used both with concrete and metaphoric meanings)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something
Context examples
“—if his faults cannot,” I went on, “be banished from your remembrance, in such an hour; look at that figure, even as one you have never seen before, and render it some help!”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
He is as Lucifer would be, were that proud spirit banished to a society of soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think only of what will make me happy—your affection, and the invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval had banished into distance and indistinctness!
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I hereby banish it completely from my presence.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It banished sordid fact, flooded his mind with beauty, loosed romance and to its heels added wings.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and good nature that banished every idea of pedantry.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
I understood that language very well, and getting upon my feet, said, “I was a poor Yahoo banished from the Houyhnhnms, and desired they would please to let me depart.”
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Learn English with... Proverbs |
"A handful of love is better than an oven full of bread" (Breton proverb)
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"He who leaves and then returns, had a good trip." (Corsican proverb)