Difference between Banish and Ostracize

What is the difference between Banish and Ostracize?

Banish as a verb is to send someone away and forbid that person from returning. while Ostracize as a verb is to exclude someone from society or from a community, by not communicating with or even noticing them, similar to shunning.

Banish

Part of speech: verb

Definition: To send someone away and forbid that person from returning. # With simple direct object. #: If you don't stop talking blasphemes, I will banish you. # With from. #: He was banished from the kingdom. # With out of. #* 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Modern Library 1999, p. 640: #*: For I am banished out of the country of Logris for ever, that is for to say the country of England. # With two simple objects (person and place). #* 1796, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Folio Society 1985, p. 190: #*: Then yours she will never be! You are banished her presence; her mother has opened her eyes to your designs, and she is now upon her guard against them. To expel, esp. from the mind.

Example sentence: I go to Spain a lot, in winter, for a blast of sunlight to banish the blues brought on by the Irish greys and drizzle. I love the cities of the Spanish interior.

Ostracize

Part of speech: verb

Definition: To exclude someone from society or from a community, by not communicating with or even noticing them, similar to shunning.

We hope you now know whether to use Banish or Ostracize in your sentence.

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