[f. prec.]
1. trans. To put (a thing, place, action, word, or person) under a (literal) taboo: see TABOO sb. 1.
1777. Cook, Voy. to Pacific, II. ix. (1785), I. 359. He had been discovered … with a woman who was taboo’d.
1779. King, Ibid., V. iv. III. 81. Eappo was dismissed with orders to taboo all the bay; and, in the afternoon, the bones [of Captain Cook] were committed to the deep with the usual military honours.
1799. Naval Chron., I. 305. Having tabooed one side of the ship in order to get all the canoes on the starboard side.
1831. Tyerman & Bennet’s Voy. & Trav., II. xxix. 40. There are many houses which, having been built, or occupied, or entered casually by him [King Pomare], are thus tabued, and no woman dare sit down or eat in them.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., vi. 144. In the South Sea Islands, words have been tabued, from connexion with the names of chiefs.
1896. F. B. Jevons, Introd. Hist. Relig., vi. 65. On the day of a chief’s decease work is tabooed.
2. transf. and fig. a. To give a sacred or privileged character to (a thing), which restricts its use to certain persons, or debars it from ordinary use or treatment; † (a) with stress on the privilege: To consecrate, set apart, render inviolable (obs.); (b) with stress on the exclusion: To forbid, prohibit to the unprivileged, or to particular persons.
(a) 1832. Blackw. Mag., April, 582/2. The silks and the veils, &c., which some years ago were as exclusively tabooed, and set apart to the use of the mistress as pearls or rubies, are now familiarly worn by the servant.
1846. R. Bell, G. Canning, viii. 218. Slavery was cruel…. But it was a sacred institution … tabooed by the consecrating hand of time.
(b) 1825. Blackw. Mag., XVII. 161. The ‘King’s highway’ seems Tabooed to these individuals.
1839. T. Hook, in New Monthly Mag., LV. 439. There were no splendid couches taboo’d against the reception of wearied feet.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., xiv. (1860), 151. Such of the gentlemen … as taboo their Glen Tilts, and shut up the passes of the Grampians.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 67. That sacred enclosure of respectability was tabooed to us.
b. To forbid or debar by personal or social influence the use, practice, or mention of, or contact or intercourse with; to put (a person, thing, name, or subject) under a social ban; to ostracize, boycott.
1791. [see TABOOED].
1822. Southey, Lett. (1856), III. 305. He has tabooed ham, vinegar, red-herrings, and all fruits.
1850. Kingsley, Alton Locke, xxx. The political questions which I longed to solve … were tabooed by the well-meaning chaplain.
1860. H. Gouger, Imprisonm. in Burmah, xii. 126. I found myself as strictly tabood as if I had been a leper.
1862. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., IV. x. § 18. 664. Their names were tabooed by Whig and Tory coteries.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., I. xii. 161. You cannot taboo a man who has got a vote.
Hence Tabooed ppl. a.
1791. Burke, App. Whigs, Wks. VI. 106. A plain declaration, that the topick of France is tabooed or forbidden ground to Mr. Burke.
1841. J. Mackerrow, Hist. Secession Ch., xxi. 767. Perpetual bickerings between the favoured and tabooed sects.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, xxi. 310. The gentlemen … regarded me as a ‘tabooed woman.’
1906. Athenæum, 17 March, 332/2. We doubt whether M. Reinach is entirely aware of the difficulty and complexity of the problem of the taboued animals in Leviticus.
