In the 16th century, Turkish women could divorce their husbands if the man failed to keep his family’s pot filled with coffee.
BANISH
banish
(verb) drive away; “banish bad thoughts”; “banish gloom”
banish, relegate, bar
(verb) expel, as if by official decree; “he was banished from his own country”
banish, ban, ostracize, ostracise, shun, cast out, blackball
(verb) expel from a community or group
banish, ban
(verb) ban from a place of residence, as for punishment
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Verb
banish (third-person singular simple present banishes, present participle banishing, simple past and past participle banished)
(heading) To send someone away and forbid that person from returning.
(with simple direct object)
(with from)
(dated, with out of)
(archaic, with two simple objects (person and place))
To expel, especially from the mind.
Anagrams
• Bhasin, ash-bin, ashbin, bash in, bashin', nisbah
Source: Wiktionary
Ban"ish, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Banished(p. pr. & vb. n. Banishing.] Etym: [OF. banir, F. bannir, LL. bannire, fr. OHG. bannan to summon, fr. ban ban. See Ban an edict, and Finish, v. t.]
1. To condemn to exile, or compel to leave one's country, by authority of the ruling power. "We banish you our territories." Shak.
2. To drive out, as from a home or familiar place; -- used with from and out of. How the ancient Celtic tongue came to be banished from the Low Countries in Scotland. Blair.
3. To drive away; to compel to depart; to dispel. "Banish all offense." Shak.
Syn.
– To Banish, Exile, Expel. The idea of a coercive removal from a place is common to these terms. A man is banished when he is forced by the government of a country (be he a foreigner or a native) to leave its borders. A man is exiled when he is driven into banishment from his native country and home. Thus to exile is to banish, but to banish is not always to exile. To expel is to eject or banish, summarily or authoritatively, and usually under circumstances of disgrace; as, to expel from a college; expelled from decent society.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
18 April 2025
GROIN
(noun) the crease at the junction of the inner part of the thigh with the trunk together with the adjacent region and often including the external genitals
Coffee Trivia
