I. adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a taboo subject (= one that it is not acceptable to mention )
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For them, death was not a taboo subject.
a taboo word (= one that people are not allowed to use )
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This has now become a taboo word.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
subject
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However, almost nothing else was considered a taboo subject .
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By talking about this taboo subject in prayers, sermons and Sunday-school lessons.
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It is a taboo subject , and the marriage ceremonies are performed in secret.
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Rape is an equally taboo subject .
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By this time - the early seventies - homosexuality was no longer a taboo subject .
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On all counts - a taboo subject .
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This should certainly not be a taboo subject , but nor should it be used to flagellate the mass of teachers.
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As unemployment rose in 1992, redundancy ceased to be a taboo subject .
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Death is still a taboo subject for many people.
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In the '50s it was taboo for co-workers to date each other.
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Sex before marriage is no longer taboo in western countries.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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A still photographer and a video cameraman followed him in there, which is taboo and off-limits and strictly verboten.
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But confusion and anger and fear are taboo .
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It is a taboo subject, and the marriage ceremonies are performed in secret.
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Like Stanley Feingold before him, he had violated the taboo against discussing the limits of the remedial process.
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On all counts - a taboo subject.
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Rape is an equally taboo subject.
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Society leads you to believe that certain things are taboo .
II. noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
social
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But sales are now rising by about 50 percent a year as the idea loses its social taboo .
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Yet in doing so they uncovered social and psychological taboos .
■ VERB
break
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She was to be ritually speared for having broken a taboo .
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It is given to some presidents to break political taboos for all time.
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Their main problem was breaking cultural taboos about women attending markets unaccompanied and trading alone.
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But Modigliani broke all the taboos and behaved like a modern-day King David.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
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Until a few years ago, there was a taboo around the subject of divorce.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
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At other times, converse sets of taboos could be quite useful.
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But, of course, if you wanted to write seriously, then the taboos were difficult to avoid.
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Farce likes to tinker with such taboos.
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It is given to some presidents to break political taboos for all time.
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Kádár was fairly liberal in that respect, so long as a few taboos were respected, especially the role of the Soviet Union.
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Sickness may be considered to be a punishment inflicted for neglect of certain taboos.
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The rules are formally protected by supposedly powerful religious taboos, breach of which will result in supernatural punishment for all concerned.
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Through his work, Freud realised that some taboos of the time were much more commonly breached than was acknowledged by society.