tabooing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of taboo.

   Critics accused the network of tabooing any mention of the scandal.

   By tabooing the subject, the family only made the children more curious about it.

   Note

   Nothing in the stem changes: the form is taboo plus -ing, and the double o stays put. As a gerund it keeps the verb's power to take an object (accused of tabooing the subject), and that object can be a person as well as a thing, since the verb also means marking someone as taboo. The same spelling also serves as the noun for imposing a ban.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of placing a taboo on someone or something.

   The long tabooing of mental illness kept many families from seeking help.

   In some communities, the tabooing of certain foods lasts for the whole period of mourning.

   Similarbanning, prohibition, stigmatization, proscription

   Note

   The act and its result have different names: what gets imposed is a taboo, and tabooing is the imposing. What is placed off-limits follows of, as in the tabooing of certain foods or of mental illness. The noun is mostly uncountable, though the plural tabooings exists for separate acts. Tabooization and tabooification mean the same thing.

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