banish
Americanverb (used with object)
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banishes,
present (3rd person singular)
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banished,
past participle, past
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banishing
present participle
-
to expel from or relegate to a country or place by authoritative decree; condemn to exile.
He was banished to Devil's Island.
- Synonyms:
- deport, outlaw, expatriate, exile
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to compel to depart; send, drive, or put away.
to banish sorrow.
verb
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to expel from a place, esp by an official decree as a punishment
-
to drive away
to banish gloom
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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banishsimple
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banishessimple
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have banishedperfect
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has banishedperfect
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am banishingprogressive
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are banishingprogressive
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is banishingprogressive
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have been banishingperfect progressive
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has been banishingperfect progressive
Past
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banishedsimple
-
had banishedperfect
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was banishingprogressive
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were banishingprogressive
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had been banishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of banish
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English banisshen, from Anglo-French, Old French baniss-, long stem of banir, from unrecorded Frankish bannjan “to proclaim,” akin to ban 1
Explanation
To banish is to get rid of. Think very carefully before you banish someone from your group. Someday, you may want that person around again. Banish rhymes with vanish, which is exactly what happens when you banish someone. Suppose a king, angry with some of his subjects, banishes them. They have to leave the kingdom and vanish — not just go home and wait for the king to change his mind. Banish comes from the Old French word bannir, which means "proclaim as an outlaw." It is serious and absolute. You can see the word ban in banish, but to ban something is not as harsh as banishing it.
Vocabulary lists containing banish
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for Middle School Students, List 6
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"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
More than that though, he vowed to banish factionalism from the party for good.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
We should banish it, because I’ve learned the hard way that it’s too abstract.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
And banish this phrase—“You’re away,” the needless etiquette of having the player farthest from the hole hit first after tee shots and other shots approaching the green.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Moments later Cronin was grabbing the kid’s shirt and leading him to the baseline, where he ordered an assistant coach to remove him from the court area and banish him to the locker room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2026
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
"Anyone who banishes Stolpersteine and memorial sites commemorating Jewish life from public spaces to the cemetery is prioritising death over life and rendering Jewish people invisible once again," she told Bild.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
Mary appears to have a form of treatment-resistant schizophrenia, until chemotherapy, following a diagnosis of lymphoma, banishes her psychiatric symptoms.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Daddy forces them to hand him their company and banishes Jimmy to the Latitude mailroom.
From Salon ● May 29, 2026
It banishes darkness, conveys telecommunications signals between continents and makes visible the invisible, from faraway galaxies to the smallest bacterium.
From Science Daily ● May 23, 2024
And then something happens that banishes even that mystery from my head.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Viewers who often get frustrated with the faithful and root for them to uncover a traitor had their wish firmly Richard E Grant-ed on Thursday, as the actor was banished in a landslide vote.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
After they were banished early on, a theory spread on social media that they were voted out because the other celebrities didn't know them that well.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
By the time national-team stars such as Gianluigi Buffon returned to Juve, the club had been banished to the second tier and stripped of two league titles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
Orpheus tries to rescue his love, but his faith in her is tested on their return to the top — if he turns back to see if she’s there, she’ll be banished to Hadestown forever.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Leah banished her only child, shipping Lizzie eight hundred miles away to live in Illinois with the father she barely knew.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Five years later, Madison Square Garden was planted atop it, banishing sunlight and driving commuters into a subterranean maze of passageways.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
South Korea has an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment -- the last prisoners were executed in 1997 -- with a death sentence effectively banishing Yoon to life behind bars.
From Barron's ● Feb. 19, 2026
In case you’ve forgotten where “Stranger Things” left us, Vecna revealed that Eleven accidentally created him by banishing him to the Upside Down.
From Salon ● Nov. 24, 2025
But the proposed move has largely been perceived as banishing the journalist to a TV backwater where viewers and advertisers dollars are scant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 28, 2025
Franklin’s endorsement of the petition from the Pennsylvania Abolition Society effectively assured that the preferred Madisonian strategy—calmly receiving these requests, then banishing them to the congressional version of oblivion—was not going to work.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
