forbidding

Other forms: forbiddings

Anything that's forbidding is a little menacing, daunting, or even frightening. It's hard enough starting at a new school, much less one in a huge, grim, forbidding building.

Things that loom high above you, dark and cold, are often described with this adjective. Think of the forbidding trees lining a spooky path at night, or your stern, forbidding math teacher, silently frowning down at the class with his arms crossed. Forbidding comes from forbid, "refuse to allow," and its Old English root meaning "command against."

Definitions of forbidding

1. noun

   an official prohibition or edict against something
   synonyms: ban, banning, forbiddance

   types:

   test ban

   a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons that is mutually agreed to by countries that possess nuclear weapons

   type of:

   prohibition

   refusal to approve or assent to
2. adjective

   threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
   “forbidding thunderclouds”

   synonyms: baleful, menacing, minacious, minatory, ominous, sinister, threatening

   alarming

   frightening because of an awareness of danger
3. adjective

   harshly uninviting or formidable in manner or appearance
   “a forbidding scowl”

   synonyms: dour, grim

   unpleasant

   disagreeable to the senses, to the mind, or feelings