Other forms: taboos
A taboo is something a society forbids without needing to explain. A social taboo, break a taboo, taboo subjects.
What makes it a taboo rather than a rule is that the prohibition is felt rather than argued: people simply do not do it, and asking why produces discomfort rather than reasons. Death, money and bodily functions carry taboos in most societies, differently in each. Note taboo as an adjective; and that the word came into English from Tongan through Captain Cook, which is one of very few Polynesian loans.
1nountabooSomething a society forbids without needing to explain.
“In many families, money is a taboo that nobody mentions at the dinner table.”
2adjectiveforbiddenForbidden by such a rule.
“Death was a taboo subject in their house, and the children never asked about it.”
taboo is a social prohibition.
Tongan tapu means prohibited or sacred, and Captain Cook brought the word into English in 1777. The p was heard as a b, which is why English has taboo rather than tapu.
pqe-pro
*tambu
poz-oce-pro
*tabu
poz-pol-pro
*tapu
to
tapu — prohibited, sacred
English, today
taboo
to tapu (“prohibited, sacred”), from poz-pol-pro tapu, from poz-oce-pro tabu, from pqe-pro tambu. a doublet of kapu. c. The p in the Tongan source was misheard as b.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Big Ideas