debar
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
debarsimple
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debarssimple
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have debarredperfect
-
has debarredperfect
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am debarringprogressive
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are debarringprogressive
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is debarringprogressive
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have been debarringperfect progressive
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has been debarringperfect progressive
Past
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debarredsimple
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had debarredperfect
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was debarringprogressive
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were debarringprogressive
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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 effort to debar Restaurant Associates stems from its July agreement, and that of subcontractor Personnel Plus, to provide $1,008,302 in back pay to 674 workers.
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
Human approbation or censure can never be exempt from injustice, because our limited perceptions debar us from a thorough knowledge of any actions and motives but our own.
From Ormond, Volume III (of 3) or, The Secret Witness by Brown, Charles Brockden
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
"But, by the laws of chivalry, the minority ceases with the stroke which confers knighthood," observed Sir John; "and the constitutional law of the kingdom debars us from shortening the period of the king's minority."
From The Childhood of King Erik Menved An Historical Romance by Ingemann, Bernhard Severin
In Brooklyn there is considerable dissatisfaction in certain quarters over the recent ruling of the I.I.S.A.A., which debars from competition in Saturday's games any student who ever attended collegiate exercises at the Polytechnic Institute.
From Harper's Round Table, May 7, 1895 by Various
But the medical profession has its well known code of ethics which debars its members from "pushing their business," and has, in certain places and times at least, prescribed a minimum tariff of fees.
From Monopolies and the People by Baker, Charles Whiting
My scepticism debars me from all firm convictions.
From Without Dogma by Sienkiewicz, Henryk
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
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 Hume, David
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
This was ingeniously framed with an appearance of justice, as if debarring from office only those who to rebellion had added perjury.
From The Negro and the Nation A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement by Merriam, George Spring
He chose a surer, safer revenge in taking no steps to procure a divorce, and so debarring Ralph from his only means of atonement—marriage with his victim.
From Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough' by Lawrence, George A. (George Alfred)
For we like to keep our coin up to our own standard, debarring no man from making better for himself.
From The Hymns of Martin Luther Set to their original melodies; with an English version by Bacon, Leonard Woolsey
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.
