Word of the Day

Wednesday May 19, 2010

verboten [ver-BOHT-n]

adjective

Since the Public Performances Act was enacted in 1912 by the British colonial government, a censorship board has blocked films containing "sex and vice" or other "unsavoury subjects." Although film censorship is lighter than the censorship of television programs - in which cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, and even prolonged kissing are blurred out - sexual content is strictly verboten.

Michael Hardy, "It's BYOP for filmgoers in Sri Lanka", Boston Globe, May 16, 2010
One of my friends, in the throes of a hot flash, wept in the Bikram class and was chastised by the instructor for leaving. The rest of us stole illicit sips from our water bottles and took breaks as discreetly as possible because they were verboten. I wound up with a migraine. I realized then that the difference between 95 and 105 degrees was make or break.

Lizette Alvarez, "Stretch Hot Vinyasa; Flow, Sweat, Stink: Nirvana", New York Times, May 9, 2010
I finally became conscious of the fact that Peter, instead of staring at the sunset, was staring at me. And I remembered that my hair was half down, trailing across my nose, and that three distinctly new freckles had shown themselves that week on the bridge of that same nose. "O God, but you're lovely!" he said in a half-smothered and shamefaced sort of whisper. "Verboten!" I reminded him. "And not so much the cussing, Peter, as the useless compliments."

Arthur Stringer (1874 - 1950) A Canadian writer. The Prairie Mother (1920)

Origin of the Word

Verboten, approximately 1915, derives from German, past participle of verbieten, to forbid, from Middle High German, from Old High German farbiotan.