tabooとは意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Borrowed from Tongan tapu (“prohibited, sacred”), from Proto-Polynesian *tapu, from Proto-Oceanic *tabu, from Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *tambu. Doublet of kapu. [Earliest use in c. 1777.]

The p in the Tongan source was misheard as b.

発音

• IPA^(key): /təˈbuː/, /tæˈbuː/

名詞

taboo (countable かつ uncountable, 複数形 taboos)

1. An inhibition or ban that results from social custom or emotional aversion.
   • 1922, James Frazer, The Golden Bough:

     So among the Alfoors of the island of Buru it is taboo to mention the names of parents and parents-in-law, or even to speak of common objects by words which resemble these names in sound.

   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, p. 213:

     The sharp differentiation of the sexes in our culture was shaped most probably by monogamy and monosexuality and their tabus.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light:Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, page 12:

     For a structuralist like Edmund Leach, the structure is the meaning. Genesis, for example, is about incest taboos; all the rest is noise and mystification.

2. (in Polynesia) Something which may not be used, approached or mentioned because it is sacred.

形容詞

taboo (comparative more taboo, superlative most taboo)

1. Excluded or forbidden from use, approach or mention.

   Incest is a taboo subject in most soap operas.

2. Culturally forbidden.

動詞

taboo (三人称単数 現在形 taboos, 現在分詞 tabooing, 過去形および過去分詞形 tabooed)

1. To mark as taboo.
2. To ban.
3. To avoid.