Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use forbidding in a sentence

19 example sentences · adjective, noun

Forbidding means appearing to be threatening, unfriendly or potentially unpleasant. Example: “As we breasted the first summit, the precipitous mass of the Raven's Rock, towering some 250 ft. above the railway, looked grim and forbidding in the failing light, and distant Ben Wyves was shrouded in mist.”

Examples of forbidding by meaning

adjectiveAppearing to be threatening, unfriendly or potentially unpleasant.

  • As we breasted the first summit, the precipitous mass of the Raven's Rock, towering some 250 ft. above the railway, looked grim and forbidding in the failing light, and distant Ben Wyves was shrouded in mist.1951 January, H. A. Vallance, “Kyle of Lochalsh Revisited”, in Railway Magazine, page 14
  • Its forbidding brick and concrete exterior looms over a vast, windswept brick plaza in a style architectural critics, not without admiration, call “The New Brutalism.”1988 January 10, “If You Can’t Fight City Hall, Here’s a Different Idea: Sell It”, in The New York Times

More sentences with forbidding

  • Maryland law protects individual civil liberties by forbidding wiretapping without the consent of the tappee.1999 August 5, “Judge Sends Clinton - And Everyone - a $90,000 Message”, in Seattle Post-Intelligencer. From the entry tappee
  • The D-Notice forbidding all reference to these events was there ahead of him.1977, John Le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy, Folio Society, published 2010, page 18. From the entry D-notice
  • I mean, of course, the world-famous, forbidding peak of U.S. income-tax prose.1958, Rudolf Flesch, “How to Write Like a Pro”, in A New Way to Better English, Garden City, N.Y.: Dolphin Books, Doubleday & Company…. From the entry Mount Everest
  • Now crown Duty with Desire and see how the stern, forbidding, Gorgon-like features change!1926 March 29, William Carter, “Duty and Desire”, in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, volume 86, number 87, New York, N.Y., page 15, column 4. From the entry bad-temperedness
  • Darnell stood grim and forbidding on his balcony.2016, Robert Barr, Measure of the Rule. From the entry temptsome
  • The result was the passing of laws forbidding the use of such "blipvert" advertising, but rumors of its insidious presence abounded.2003, Andy Fyfe, When the Levee Breaks: The Making of Led Zeppelin IV. From the entry blipvert
  • If you are familiar with your Paris you will recall the narrow, forbidding precincts of the Rue Maule.1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “What Happened in the Rue Maule”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt…. From the entry berth
  • To lapse from knowledge into nescience is always possible—there is no law of God or man forbidding it.1911, Ralph Barton Perry, “Notes on the Philosophy of Henri Bergson”, in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods…. From the entry nescience
  • Wisdom, becried on either hand, will steer very nicely a middle course between these extremes; allowing here, forbidding there.1909, Harrington Sainsbury, Drugs and the drug habit. From the entry becry
  • The relevant statute, the presumption of judicial review, and our precedent all point toward allowing, not forbidding, inventors their day in court.2020, Thryv, Inc., FKA Dex Media, Inc. v. Click-to-Call Technologies, LP, et al. (U.S. Supreme Court No. 18–916), Justice Gorsuch dissenting. From the entry be one thing
  • It was the nicest-looking property Elwood had ever seen—a real school, a good one, not the forbidding reformatory he’d conjured the last few weeks.2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 45. From the entry reformatory
  • Forbidding alcohol, eliminating visits to neighbors at night, and withholding adequate food, shelter, and clothing also were measures taken to prevent drapetomania.2008, Frederick T. Leong, Encyclopedia of Counseling - Volume 2, →ISBN. From the entry drapetomania
  • The Copper stood before the massive Black Rock in the center of the Lavadome; it was dozens of dragonlengths high, heavy and black and forbidding.2007, E. E. Knight (pseudonym; Eric Frisch), chapter 22, in Dragon Outcast (The Age of Fire; 3), Roc Books, →ISBN, page 257. From the entry dragonlength
  • As the city has lost its gravitational pull, the suburb's once neat orbit is increasingly one that traverses cold, forbidding, ungridded deep-space.2007, Andrew Shanken, “The Sublime "Jackass"”, in Places, volume 19. From the entry ungridded
  • It was the draft of the law, subsequently Draconically imposed, forbidding abortion, which had hitherto been permitted under official auspices in cases not considered dangerous.1951 April, F. Beck [pseudonym], W. Godin [pseudonym], translated by Eric Mosbacher and David Porter, “The Iron Commissar”, in Russian…. From the entry draconically
  • Seen in the darkness, it was that of an evil-looking, thick-set savage, with a forbidding countenance dotted unevenly with scrabbly wisps of beard.1906, Bertram Mitford, Harley Greenoak's charge, page 254. From the entry scrabbly
  • It was his orgueil that weaned him from the faith and stood henceforth, an inexorable sentinel at the door of his heart, forbidding God to enter.1926, Percy Mansell Jones, Verhaeren. From the entry orgueil

Meaning of forbidding

  1. adjective Appearing to be threatening, unfriendly or potentially unpleasant.
  2. noun The act by which something is forbidden; a prohibition.

Full definition of forbidding

Questions about forbidding in a sentence

How do you use forbidding in a sentence?
Forbidding is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “As we breasted the first summit, the precipitous mass of the Raven's Rock, towering some 250 ft. above the railway, looked grim and forbidding in the failing light, and distant Ben Wyves was shrouded in mist.”
What is a short sentence with forbidding?
“Darnell stood grim and forbidding on his balcony.”
What does forbidding mean?
Forbidding means appearing to be threatening, unfriendly or potentially unpleasant.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forbidding (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use forbidding in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/forbidding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.