proscribe
verb
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Proscribe vs. Prescribe
Signs, signs, everywhere, signs: some prescribe (“do this”) and others proscribe (“don’t do that”). Don’t take it as a bad sign if you have difficulty telling prescribe and proscribe apart, however; you’ve got plenty of company, and a good excuse. Proscribe and prescribe both come from Latin words that combine a prefix meaning “before” with the verb scribere, meaning “to write.” Yet the two words have very distinct, often nearly opposite meanings, hints of which emerge upon a closer look at their origins. Prescribe comes from praescribere, meaning “to dictate, order”—clear enough for a word used when making rules and giving orders. Proscribe has a more complex history: proscribere means both “to publish” and, more specifically, “to publish the name of someone who is condemned to death and whose property is now forfeited to the state.” This narrower meaning is the one proscribe carried into English when it was first used in the 15th century. By the early 17th century, the word had expanded from merely signaling condemnation to actual condemning or prohibiting.
Examples of proscribe in a Sentence
Thomas Smith, Billboard, 22 May 2025
The Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation and banned under UK law.
—Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, 21 May 2025
States have never consistently complied with the rule, enshrined in the UN Charter in response to Nazi Germany’s swallowing other countries whole during World War II, that proscribed the forcible seizure of another state’s territory.
—Tanisha M. Fazal, Foreign Affairs, 21 Mar. 2025
Disparate-impact liability imperils the effectiveness of civil rights laws by mandating, rather than proscribing, discrimination.
—Thomas G. Moukawsher, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for proscribe
Cite this Entry
“Proscribe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proscribe. Accessed 2 Jun. 2025.
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proscribe
transitive verb
Latin proscribere to publish, proscribe, from pro- before + scribere to write
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