- Today's Word
Proscribe
proh-SKRYBE
Definition
(verb) To officially forbid something, especially by law or authority; to condemn or prohibit as harmful or unacceptable.
Example
The new administration moved quickly to proscribe several previously tolerated practices, leaving industries scrambling to interpret exactly what compliance now required.
Word Origin
Proscribe derives from the Latin proscribere, meaning “to publish in writing” — from pro- (“before” or “publicly”) and scribere (“to write”). In ancient Rome, proscription was a formal public notice posted in the forum listing the names of enemies of the state — men whose property was forfeit and whose killers would be rewarded. To be proscribed was to be publicly condemned and stripped of all legal protection. The word’s journey from “publicly written” to “officially forbidden” traces directly through this brutal Roman practice.
Fun Fact
Rome’s most notorious proscriptions were ordered by Sulla in 82 BCE and later by the Second Triumvirate — Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus — in 43 BCE. The Triumvirate’s lists ultimately condemned roughly 300 senators and 2,000 knights, including Cicero, whose head and hands were displayed on the Rostra in the Roman Forum — the same platform from which he had delivered his most celebrated speeches. The proscription lists were essentially state-sanctioned assassination rosters, making proscribe one of the few words whose etymology doubles as one of history’s darkest administrative procedures.
