banishment

[ ban-ish-muhnt ]

noun

1. expulsion from a country, place, or position by authoritative decree, or the state of having been expelled:

   A royal proclamation ordered the banishment of all priests from the city.

   The team’s wide receiver flunked another drug test and will now be subject to a one-year banishment, according to league sources.

2. the act of driving away, or the state of having been sent away or driven out:

   We strive for the preservation of peace and the banishment of tyranny and slavery from the earth.

   The decades after World War II were marked not by disarmament and the banishment of war but by ceaseless confrontation and the division of the world into hostile blocs.

Other Words From

• non·ban·ish·ment noun
• pro·ban·ish·ment noun
• self-ban·ish·ment noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of banishment¹

banish ( def ) + -ment ( def )

Example Sentences

The daughter of a disgraced house, Valya isn’t content to accept her family’s banishment to a life peddling whale fur and blubber.

From Salon

But baseball shrugged and Rose’s banishment from the game stood.

From Los Angeles Times

This is not a man trying to extricate himself from banishment or prove to himself that he’s still got game.

From Los Angeles Times

Paradoxically, this banishment saw the work become a sensation outside the UK, establishing Bond as a "colossus of the world stage", wrote Claire Armitstead for The Guardian.

From BBC

What changed in the years since the beginning of the #MeToo movement is the presumption that strong enough discursive pushback might indeed lead to actual banishment.

From New York Times

Related Words

• deportation
• expulsion