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
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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:
We should banish it, because I’ve learned the hard way that it’s too abstract.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
He also claims that the prince fears that his brother, the future king, "could remove all the Sussexes' titles and effectively banish him from Britain".
From BBC ● Mar. 14, 2026
He observes that labeling certain feelings as negative justifies attempts to banish them, but he counsels doing the opposite.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 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
The West Computers watched their colleague remove the sign and banish it to the recesses of her purse, her small act of defiance inspiring both anxiety and a sense of empowerment.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
This major win, surely, banishes such a notion.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2024
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
Pierre plays the cruel Duke Frederick, who banishes his brother, among others, to the Forest of Arden in this tale of camouflage, love and self discovery.
From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
This act revolves around his favorite daughter, Brünnhilde, whom he banishes from the gods for disobeying her father even though she was only doing what she knew he wanted deep down.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2022
And then something happens that banishes even that mystery from my head.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Now she has been banished along with fruit and vegetable sellers to a vacant lot with lower foot traffic, her turnover roughly halving as a result.
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 2026
After Anthony’s dog savaged another man’s hog—hogs being precious in New Netherland—the couple was banished in 1639 to Long Island, where the two started a new life on land the Dutch wished to colonize.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Too quiet, many locals say, because off-road vehicles and beach camping have been temporarily banished from San Luis Obispo County’s Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area since April 14.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
India banished the ghosts of 2023 by emphatically beating New Zealand by 96 runs in Ahmedabad to defend their T20 World Cup title.
From BBC ● Mar. 8, 2026
The feel of the warm silk on the skin of his neck banished all traces of fear.
From "Tiger, Tiger" by Lynne Reid Banks
Rickover likened himself to Attila the Hun and had young officers conduct job interviews on chairs with specially shortened front legs, banishing them to a closet if they disappointed him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 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
The singer said she suspects she’ll be battling that toxic perfectionism for the rest of her life, but she’s gotten better at banishing it to the backseat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 2, 2025
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
I wondered if Dad had agreed to it because of his guilt for banishing Mr. Bykovski to the mine.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
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.
