logo       

verboten: msg#00018

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: verboten

****************************************************************
Planning to catch some Zs this summer? Check out the new
fourth edition of The Official SCRABBLE(R) Players Dictionary!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?scrabdic.htm&3
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for July 19 is:

verboten \ver-BOH-tun\ adjective
: forbidden; especially : prohibited by dictate

Example sentence:
During the era of prohibition in the United States, when the sale of
alcohol was verboten, speakeasies were routinely raided by the authorities and
shut down.

Did you know?
Despite its spelling, the adjective "verboten" has nothing to do with
"verb," or any of the other words in our language related to the Latin
"verbum." Rather, "verboten" comes from German, which got it from Old High
German "farboten," the past participle of the verb "farbioten," meaning "to
forbid." ("Forbid" itself derives from Old English "forbeodan," a relative of
"farbioten.") "Verboten," which first appeared in English in 1916, is used to
describe things that are forbidden according to a law or a highly regarded
authority. There also exists a noun "verboten," meaning "something forbidden by
authority" (as in "well-established verbotens"), but this sense is quite rare
and is typically entered only in large, unabridged dictionaries.







<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Google Custom Search

News | FAQ | advertise