n., pl., -boos, also -bus.
- A ban or an inhibition resulting from social custom or emotional aversion.
- A prohibition, especially in Polynesia and other South Pacific islands, excluding something from use, approach, or mention because of its sacred and inviolable nature.
- An object, a word, or an act protected by such a prohibition.
Excluded or forbidden from use, approach, or mention: a taboo subject.
tr.v., -booed, also -bued, -boo·ing, -bu·ing, -boos, -bus.
To exclude from use, approach, or mention; place under taboo.
[Tongan tabu, under prohibition.]
WORD HISTORY Among the many discoveries of Captain James Cook was a linguistic one, the term taboo. In a journal entry from 1777, Cook says this word "has a very comprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden-=@ellipsis4=- When any thing is forbidden to be eat, or made use of, they say, that it is taboo." Cook was in the Friendly Islands (now Tonga) at the time, so even though similar words occur in other Polynesian languages, the form taboo from Tongan tabu is the one we have borrowed. The Tongans used tabu as an adjective. Cook, besides borrowing the word into English, also made it into a noun referring to the prohibition itself and a verb meaning "to make someone or something taboo." From its origins in Polynesia the word taboo has traveled as widely as Cook himself and is now used throughout the English-speaking world.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
