taboo
Americanadjective
-
proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable.
Taboo language is usually bleeped on TV.
- Synonyms:
- forbidden
- Antonyms:
- permissible, allowed
-
prohibited or excluded from use or practice.
In art school, painting from photographs was taboo.
-
(among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific) separated or set apart as sacred; forbidden for general use; placed under a prohibition or ban.
- Synonyms:
- inviolable, sacrosanct
noun
-
taboos
plural
-
a prohibition or interdiction of anything; exclusion from use or practice.
One of the strongest taboos in all modern societies is against incest.
- Synonyms:
- no-no, interdiction, embargo, proscription, ban
-
(among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific)
-
the system, practice, or act whereby things are set apart as sacred, forbidden for general use, or placed under a prohibition or interdiction.
-
the condition of being so set apart, forbidden, or interdicted.
-
-
exclusion from social relations; ostracism.
verb (used with object)
-
taboos,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tabooed,
past participle, past
-
tabooing
present participle
adjective
-
forbidden or disapproved of; placed under a social prohibition or ban
taboo words
-
(in Polynesia and other islands of the South Pacific) marked off as simultaneously sacred and forbidden
noun
-
any prohibition resulting from social or other conventions
-
ritual restriction or prohibition, esp of something that is considered holy or unclean
verb
Usage
What is taboo? Taboo describes an activity or behavior that is considered completely unacceptable or forbidden. A taboo is also the prohibition from engaging in such an activity or behavior through social rules, laws, religious doctrine, and even by your own conscience. Something considered taboo is considered unacceptable by the vast majority of a person’s social group. Often, there is a serious punishment for performing the taboo activity. Many activities that we refer to as crimes are examples of taboos, such as theft, murder, and kidnapping. These activities are considered unacceptable by the government or the law and have strict punishments. Sacred religious writings also outline specific activities as taboo and shouldn’t be done by the religion’s followers. For example, Jewish law considers pork to be taboo, so many Jewish people do not eat pork. Sometimes, taboos are so unacceptable to a society that laws are not needed to forbid people from doing them. Even thinking about them or reading about them can make you feel disgusted, which gives you an idea of how powerful the label of taboo can be.
Synonym Usage
See forbid.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
taboosimple
-
taboossimple
-
have tabooedperfect
-
has tabooedperfect
-
am tabooingprogressive
-
are tabooingprogressive
-
is tabooingprogressive
-
have been tabooingperfect progressive
-
has been tabooingperfect progressive
Past
-
tabooedsimple
-
had tabooedperfect
-
was tabooingprogressive
-
were tabooingprogressive
-
had been tabooingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of taboo
First recorded in 1770–80; from Tongan tabu “forbidden, prohibited”; the spellings tabu and taboo both appear in Captain James Cook's journal in 1777
Explanation
Something considered taboo is naughty, something society considers a no-no. For example, it is taboo to ask people how much money they earn. Taboo is one of those rare words in the English language that doesn't have Greek or Latin or French roots, coming instead from the South Pacific Islands in the eighteenth century via the explorer Captain Cook. For many islanders some things were tabu, meaning not only could they not be done but they could not be talked about either for risk of offending the Gods. This latter meaning still applies today (minus the spiritual underpinning), when we say that certain subjects are "taboo," meaning off-limits for discussion.
Vocabulary lists containing taboo
Human Geography - Middle School
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This Week in Words: January 13 - 19, 2018
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Human Geography - High School
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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:
“Well, 40 years ago, people didn’t want to talk about a 24-hour sports network either as if competing with ‘The Big Three’ broadcast networks was taboo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Air conditioning, long disdained in France, is "no longer taboo at all", Jehanno said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 11, 2026
For decades, the ordeal was a family taboo, something Lin only learned about later in his life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
“I want for it not to be taboo to ask, ‘What is the accountability for these women?’
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026
People are also guided by seemingly arbitrary cultural preferences, such as considering fish either delicacies or taboo.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Along with questioning social and sexual taboos, feminism and acts of aggression, Ono also confronts her own issues with ego from a Buddhist perspective, just as Cage had.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
The show was groundbreaking - it put the stories of LGBTQ+ people during the HIV/Aids epidemic front and centre, tackled social taboos and gave a voice to those who are often marginalised.
From BBC ● May 19, 2026
"It's also a film about the transmission of generational trauma across three generations in a family, and how taboos, unspoken things and secrets travel."
From Barron's ● Feb. 16, 2026
They are full of young people—many already natural risk-takers—with time to kill, disposable income and few taboos when it comes to talking about personal finance, since military pay is public and based on rank.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 1, 2025
Despite the best efforts of grammatical exorcists, the ghosts of dead rules and the spirits of imaginary taboos are still rattling and thumping about the old place.
From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner
At the Harvard College library, the only copy was removed from the shelves “and kept under lock and key with other tabooed books,” Justin Kaplan wrote in “Walt Whitman. A Life.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 30, 2022
Despite being one of the world’s favorite food categories — both nutritionally complete and widely considered tasty — meat is also the most tabooed food across many cultures.
From New York Times ● Dec. 27, 2021
A rigid rule excluding the work of all artists who had not been dead for 20 years tabooed all moderns.
From Time Magazine Archive
Headquarters order clamped down on gasoline waste, tabooed idling motors, pouring gas without funnels, etc.
From Time Magazine Archive
Discussion of the island was, ,by mutual consent, tabooed.
From "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
But I can't lose a day of this wonder, and fortunately dear Aunt Ann never dreams of tabooing my sight-seeing.
From Against Odds A Detective Story by Lawrence L. Lynch
No doubt there was a time when the stage was so profligate that the Puritans were justified in tabooing it altogether.
From Chopin and Other Musical Essays by Henry Theophilus Finck
But to guard against the possibility of any visual profanation, Donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing that rock to foot of man or pinion of fowl.
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I by Herman Melville
Besides these taboos, which were observed by each tribe separately, all the Zulu tribes united in tabooing the name of the king who reigned over the whole nation.
From The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer
But that's always the way in tabooing societies.
From The British Barbarians by Grant Allen
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.
