debar
Americanverb (used with object)
-
debars,
present (3rd person singular)
-
debarred,
past participle, past
-
debarring
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
debarsimple
-
debarssimple
-
have debarredperfect
-
has debarredperfect
-
am debarringprogressive
-
are debarringprogressive
-
is debarringprogressive
-
have been debarringperfect progressive
-
has been debarringperfect progressive
Past
-
debarredsimple
-
had debarredperfect
-
was debarringprogressive
-
were debarringprogressive
-
had been debarringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of debar
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle French, Old French desbarrer to lock out, bar. See de-, bar 1
Explanation
To debar is to officially bar, ban, or exclude someone from doing something. Debar can also mean to prevent something from happening. If you have a hat club, you can debar anyone who’s not wearing one. If someone is barred from entering, they are prevented from entering. Oddly enough, to debar them means the same thing. If you're debarred from a school, you can no longer attend. If a politician is debarred from office, they've been thrown out. You can also debar events. Eating well and exercising can debar many health problems. This kind of debarring means the same as averting. People try to debar negative things from happening.
Vocabulary lists containing debar
Paradise Lost
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Emily of New Moon
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A Room of One's Own
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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:
It is relatively rare for HHS to debar an NIH grantee.
From Science Magazine ● May 15, 2024
The agency also is seeking to debar the company’s principal officer, Dick Cattani.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 4, 2017
You would think that views like that might just debar you from holding that office, but no.
From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2015
“Sexual orientation does not debar anyone from God’s love,” it said in a statement in March.
From New York Times ● May 22, 2015
Awa' wi' your leeches, lady," he said, "Of them I'll be the waur; There's nae a leech in Edinbro' town, That can strong death debar.
From English and Scottish Ballads (volume 3 of 8) by Various
The temptation to do this presses heavily on those whose occupations end with daylight and on those multitudes of elderly folk whose chief sorrow now is that age debars them from public service.
From Time Magazine Archive
Also, the cost of Mr. Myers' book debars from it the mass of readers.
From Psychic Phenomena A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed in Psychical Research by Edward T. Bennett
If a man goes through life without touching a card, he probably loses a good deal of innocent amusement, and debars himself from much pleasant society.
From The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent by Sir Home Gordon, Bart.
This debars us from devoting our best hours and the best part of our days to art, even though that art be the greatest and worthiest.
From Human, All-Too-Human, Part II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
She therefore repeated her remark slowly and in precisely the same words and tone— “I hope that there is no consideration as to health which debars you from this very desirable exercise, Mr Riddell?”
From The Willoughby Captains by Talbot Baines Reed
Horowitz criticized the government’s failure early on to use the “Do Not Pay” Treasury Department database, designed to keep government money from going to debarred contractors, fugitives, felons or people convicted of tax fraud.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 11, 2023
The divorced, disgraced, and debarred physician was ready to come out of the shadows: He was an illegal abortionist and had been for more than 35 years and 25,000 procedures.
From Slate ● Jun. 15, 2022
The U.N. suspended work with Glocoms in 2013 after a reporter informed it that the World Bank had debarred the company.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2016
As a result the publisher has been added to the bank's "debarred list", which names and shames organisations found by the bank to have acted corruptly.
From The Guardian ● May 6, 2010
For this doctrine, as may be presumed, he was debarred from all preaching.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
In New York City absence is the sole condition for debarring any pupil, since he must have pursued a subject the prescribed time.
From The High School Failures A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or Commercial High School Subjects by Francis P. Obrien
If you abide by it, you deny the Absolute and Infinite in the very act of affirming it, for, in debarring the First Cause from self-revelation, you impose a limit on its nature.
From On the Genesis of Species by St. George Mivart
The commissioners rendered his confinement at Holdenby very rigorous; dismissing his ancient servants, debarring him from visits, and cutting off all communication with his friends or family.
From The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. From Charles I. to Cromwell by David Hume
May 30.—Prynne continued, in subsequent pamphlets, to attack the Rumpers for the wrong done to him and the other secluded members in still debarring them from their seats.
From The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 by David Masson
As before stated, the customer's dealings with the pass-book cannot, in the present state of the authorities, be relied on as debarring him from disputing unauthorized payments appearing therein.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 "Banks" to "Bassoon" by Various
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.
