taboo
tuh-BOO · noun
Proto-Eastern Malayo-PolynesianProto-OceanicProto-PolynesianTonganEnglish
Origin
English borrowed "taboo" from Tongan tapu, meaning "prohibited, sacred," first recorded around 1777. The word traces back further through Proto-Polynesian *tapu, Proto-Oceanic *tabu, and Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *tambu.
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Journey
The shift from tapu to taboo happened simply because English speakers heard the Tongan p as a b.
Related words
Taboo is a doublet of "kapu," meaning the two English words descend from the same ancestral root but arrived by different paths.