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CEFR C2 — Proficiency

Taboo

Definition

(anthropology / formal) A social or religious custom prohibiting a particular practice, word, or association with a person, place, or thing; the prohibition itself, often carrying an aura of the sacred or the unclean. Frequently collocates with 'against', 'surrounding', 'break', 'violate', and 'enforce'.

Example Sentences

1Anthropologists have long debated whether the incest taboo is a cultural universal or a construct specific to certain kinship systems.
2Is the taboo surrounding mental illness in certain professions finally beginning to erode, or does it persist in more insidious forms?
3Freud did not merely describe the Oedipal taboo; he argued that its repression fundamentally structures the human psyche.
4Do not mistake a temporary social convention for a deeply entrenched taboo; the latter carries sanctions far more severe than mere disapproval.
5There exists in every society a set of unspoken taboos whose violation provokes revulsion rather than reasoned argument.

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