taboo

• tabu, tapu

Borrowed from Tongan tapu (“prohibited, sacred”), from Proto-Polynesian *tapu, from Proto-Oceanic *tabu, from Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *tambu. Doublet of kapu. First attested in c. 1777.

The p in the Tongan source was misheard as b.

• IPA^(key): /təˈbuː/, /tæˈbuː/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uː

taboo (countable and uncountable, plural taboos)

1. An inhibition or ban that results from social custom or emotional aversion.
   • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 194:

     It is true indeed that a taboo - in order to be a proper taboo - must not rest in the general mind on argument or reason.

   • 1922, James Frazer, The Golden Bough:

     So among the Alfoors of the island of Buru it is taboo to mention the names of parents and parents-in-law, or even to speak of common objects by words which resemble these names in sound.

   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 213:

     The sharp differentiation of the sexes in our culture was shaped most probably by monogamy and monosexuality and their tabus.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 12:

     For a structuralist like Edmund Leach, the structure is the meaning. Genesis, for example, is about incest taboos; all the rest is noise and mystification.

   • 2023 June 6, Kevin Roose, “Why I Can’t Bet Against Apple’s Mixed-Reality Prowess”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Now, we assume that people who check their watches at dinner are probably trying to avoid pulling out their phones, which would be ruder and more disruptive. In other words, mass adoption killed the taboo.

2. (in Polynesia) Something which may not be used, approached or mentioned because it is sacred.

taboo (comparative more taboo, superlative most taboo)

1. Excluded or forbidden from use, approach or mention.

   Incest is a taboo subject in most soap operas.

2. Culturally forbidden.

taboo (third-person singular simple present taboos, present participle tabooing, simple past and past participle tabooed)

1. To mark as taboo.

   Synonym: tabooize

2. To ban.
3. To avoid.

• aboot