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banns.
to prohibit, forbid, or bar; interdict:
to ban nuclear weapons; the dictator banned all newspapers and books that criticized his regime.
archaic.

to pr-nounce an ecclesiastical curse upon.
to curse; execrate.

the act of prohibiting by law; interdiction.
informal denunciation or prohibition, as by public opinion:
society’s ban on racial discrimination.
law.

a proclamation.
a public condemnation.

ecclesiastical. a formal condemnation; excommunication.
a malediction; curse.
a public proclamation or edict.
bans, ecclesiastical, banns.

the summoning of the sovereign’s v-ssals for military service.
the body of v-ssals summoned.

notice of an intended marriage, given three times in the parish church of each of the betrothed.
any public announcement of a proposed marriage, either verbal or written and made in a church or by church officials.
contemporary examples

she likened france’s ban to the bans in mideast countries on western clothing, and said both were equally insidious.
is france’s veil ban protecting or repressing muslim women? katie baker march 11, 2011

new york blinks in the face of uncertainty and bans hydraulic fracturing.
new york’s conservative fracking ban jay michaelson december 19, 2014

a new law that went into effect this month bans the sale of 190-proof grain alcohol such as everclear.
maryland’s plan to stop rape: ban ‘jungle juice’ tim mak july 6, 2014

such bans are not subject to any procedural consistency; different departments can call for bans.
gandhi book ban firestorm salil tripathi april 2, 2011

russia bans lace panties: say goodbye to lacy undergarments in russia, kazakhstan, and belarus!
russia bans lace panties; kardashians launch kids’ clothing line the fashion beast team february 18, 2014

historical examples

the moralist who bans p-ssion is not of our time; his place these many years is with the dead.
little essays of love and virtue havelock ellis

nothing remained to be done but to publish the bans and fix the date.
the man with the broken ear edmond about

there, too, were the bans of her brother maurice published, and there he was married.
catholic world, vol. xiii, april to september, 1871 various

the last publication of the bans of marriage in m-ssachusetts.
the every day book of history and chronology joel munsell

it is the blood-tie that bans marriage within the totem group, not the common totem.
the secret of the totem andrew lang

plural noun
a variant spelling of banns
verb bans, banning, banned
(transitive) to prohibit, esp officially, from action, display, entrance, sale, etc; forbid: to ban a book, to ban smoking
(transitive) (formerly in south africa) to place (a person suspected of illegal political activity) under a government order restricting his movement and his contact with other people
(archaic) to curse
noun
an official prohibition or interdiction
(law) an official proclamation or public notice, esp of prohibition
a public proclamation or edict, esp of outlawry
(archaic) public censure or condemnation
(archaic) a curse; imprecation
noun
(in feudal england) the summoning of v-ssals to perform their military obligations
noun (pl) bani (ˈbɑːnɪ)
a monetary unit of romania and moldova worth one hundredth of a leu
plural noun
the public declaration of an intended marriage, usually formally announced on three successive sundays in the parish churches of both the betrothed
forbid the banns, to raise an objection to a marriage announced in this way
v.

old english bannan “to summon, command, proclaim,” from proto-germanic -bannan “proclaim, command, forbid” (cf. old high german bannan “to command or forbid under threat of punishment,” german bannen “banish, expel, curse”), originally “to speak publicly,” from pie root -bha- (2) “to speak” (cf. old irish bann “law,” armenian ban “word;” see fame (n.)).

main modern sense of “to prohibit” (late 14c.) is from old norse cognate banna “to curse, prohibit,” and probably in part from old french ban, which meant “outlawry, banishment,” among other things (see b-n-l) and was a borrowing from germanic. the sense evolution in germanic was from “speak” to “proclaim a threat” to (in norse, german, etc.) “curse.”

the germanic root, borrowed in latin and french, has been productive, e.g. banish, bandit, contraband, etc. related: banned; banning. banned in boston dates from 1920s, in allusion to the excessive zeal and power of that city’s watch and ward society.
n.

“edict of prohibition,” c.1300, “proclamation or edict of an overlord,” from old english (ge)bann “proclamation, summons, command” and old french ban, both from germanic; see ban (v.).

“governor of croatia,” from serbo-croatian ban “lord, master, ruler,” from persian ban “prince, lord, chief, governor,” related to sanskrit pati “guards, protects.” hence banat “district governed by a ban,” with latinate suffix -atus. the persian word got into slavic perhaps via the avars.
n.

see bann.