BANISHMENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does banishment mean? 

• BANISHMENT (noun)
  The noun BANISHMENT has 2 senses:

1. the state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent)

2. rejection by means of an act of banishing or proscribing someone

  Familiarity information: BANISHMENT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BANISHMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

banishment; Coventry; ostracism

Context example:

the association should get rid of its elderly members--not by euthanasia, of course, but by Coventry

Hypernyms ("banishment" is a kind of...):

exclusion (the state of being excluded)

Derivation:

banish (expel from a community or group)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Rejection by means of an act of banishing or proscribing someone

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

banishment; proscription

Hypernyms ("banishment" is a kind of...):

rejection (the act of rejecting something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "banishment"):

anathematisation; anathematization (the formal act of pronouncing (someone or something) accursed)

disbarment (the act of expelling a lawyer from the practice of law)

ejection; exclusion; expulsion; riddance (the act of forcing out someone or something)

deportation; exile; expatriation; transportation (the act of expelling a person from their native land)

excision; excommunication (the act of banishing a member of a church from the communion of believers and the privileges of the church; cutting a person off from a religious society)

relegation (mild banishment; consignment to an inferior position)

rustication (banishment into the country)

Derivation:

banish (expel, as if by official decree)

 Context examples 

My family may consider it banishment, if they please; but I am a wife and mother, and I never will desert Mr. Micawber.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

After I had discovered this island, I considered no further; but resolved it should if possible, be the first place of my banishment, leaving the consequence to fortune.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Alas, this isolation—this banishment from my kind!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The announcement was received with black silence, though the other four hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause of their banishment.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The marriage of Eleanor Tilney, her removal from all the evils of such a home as Northanger had been made by Henry's banishment, to the home of her choice and the man of her choice, is an event which I expect to give general satisfaction among all her acquaintance.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Going in to exult over a fallen enemy and to praise a strong-minded sister for the banishment of an objectionable lover, it certainly was a shock to behold the aforesaid enemy serenely sitting on the sofa, with the strongminded sister enthroned upon his knee and wearing an expression of the most abject submission.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon the corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)