proscribe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English proscriben,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Latin prōscrībō (“to publish in writing; to post someone as condemned, outlaw”),^{[6][3][4][5][7]} from prō- (“before, in public”) and scrībō (“to write”),^[6][5][8] from Proto-Indo-European *skribh- (“to cut”).^[4][5] The OED compares French proscrire and Italian proscrivere, and also records a rare parallel form proscrive, from the French stem, in Older Scots and in archaic 19th-century use.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To write something in front, to prefix: probably before 1425, in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon, according to Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary.^[3][2] Dictionary.com's Random House text gives 1375–1425.^[9] The 1989 edition of the OED thought this use might be a scribal error for prescribe,^[10] and the revised OED begins instead with the sense "condemned", from a poem of 1445 on Queen Margaret's entry into London.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The literal "write in front" stayed rare and died out in Middle English.^[11] The word's history comes from the Roman practice of posting names: the OED explains that citizens declared outlaws had their names published and their goods confiscated, that under Sulla (82–80 BC) over 500 citizens were proscribed in this way, and that a further proscription came under the Triumvirate in 43 BC.^[6] From the 15th century English used it for people, in proscribed, exiled or outlawed,^[4][2] and by the 1550s for publishing a name as condemned to death and loss of property.^[4] Johnson (1755) still glossed it as "to censure capitally; to doom to destruction".^[12] From 1622 the object could be a thing and not a person, and the word came to mean to forbid or condemn; this is its main sense today.^[6][3][8] French made a similar move, applying its verb to words and usages from 1680.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1425 – to write something in front, prefix, in a translation of Higden.^[3][2]
• 1445 – proscribed, exiled, condemned, in a poem on Queen Margaret's entry into London.^[6][2]
• 1550s – to publish a name as condemned to death and confiscation of property.^[4]
• 1603 – to place a country under an interdict (obsolete by 1625).^[6]
• 1622 – to prohibit, forbid or condemn, in Mabbe's translation of Alemán.^[6][3]
• 1680 – to ostracize, in Roscommon's translation of Horace (rare and obsolete).^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To condemn or prohibit something as harmful or unacceptable: The new rules proscribe smoking on the factory floor.^[8][13][6]
2. To outlaw, banish or exile a person.^[8][13][11]
3. In ancient Rome, to post the name of a citizen as outlawed, condemned to death and with property forfeited.^[8][13][6]
4. (obsolete) To write something in front of another piece of writing.^[11][2][10]

Word family

• proscriber
• proscribable

Related words

• proscription
• scribe
• prescribe
• script
• postscript
• scrivener

Usage notes

It is listed with prescribe among words easily confused.^[9] The 1989 edition of the OED also records proscribe from 1530 as a former use for prescribe.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster