• IPA: /bæn/

ban (bans, present participle banning; past banned, past participle banned)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To summon; to call out.
2. (transitive) To anathematize; to pronounce an ecclesiastical curse upon; to place under a ban.
3. (transitive) To curse; to execrate.
4. (transitive) To prohibit; to interdict; to proscribe; to forbid or block from participation.

   Bare feet are banned in this establishment.

5. (transitive) To curse; to utter curses or maledictions.

• forbid
• prohibit
• disallow

• French: interdire, proscrire
• German: verbieten
• Italian: espellere, vietare, censurare, bandire
• Portuguese: proibir, banir
• Russian: запреща́ть
• Spanish: prohibir

ban (plural bans)

1. Prohibition.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,
     Much more to taste it under ban to touch

2. A public proclamation or edict; a summons by public proclamation. Chiefly, in early use, a summons to arms.

   Bans is common and ordinary amongst the Feudists, and signifies a proclamation, or any public notice.

3. The gathering of the (French) king's vassals for war; the whole body of vassals so assembled, or liable to be summoned; originally, the same as arrière-ban: in the 16th c., French usage created a distinction between ban and arrière-ban, for which see the latter word.

   He has sent abroad to assemble his ban and arriere ban.

   The Ban and the Arrierban are met armed in the field to choose a king.

   France was at such a Pinch..that they call'd their Ban and Arriere Ban, the assembling whereof had been long discussed, and in a manner antiquated.

   The ban was sometimes convoked, that is, the possessors of the fiefs were called upon for military services.

   The act of calling together the vassals in armed array, was entitled ‘convoking the ban.

4. (obsolete) A curse or anathema.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

     With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected

5. A pecuniary mulct or penalty laid upon a delinquent for offending against a ban, such as a mulct paid to a bishop by one guilty of sacrilege or other crimes.

• black ban
• total fire ban

• French: interdiction, prohibition
• German: Verbot
• Italian: proibizione, divieto
• Portuguese: proibição
• Russian: запре́т
• Spanish: prohibición

ban (plural bani)

1. A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Romanian leu.
2. A subdivision of currency, equal to one hundredth of a Moldovan leu.

• German: Ban

ban (plural bans)

1. A unit measuring information or entropy based on base-ten logarithms, rather than the base-two logarithms that define the bit.

• dit, hartley

ban (plural bans)

1. A title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century.

• banat, banate, Banat

• German: Ban, Banus
• Italian: bano

1. Initialism of British Approved Name

1. Surname