Band or banned?
band is a noun meaning “A strip of material wrapped around things to hold them together”; banned is an adjective meaning “Forbidden; not allowed”. Use band as a noun and banned as an adjective. They sound the same (/bænd/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) band is about 3.2 times as common as banned.
What is the difference between band and banned?
| band | banned | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | adjective, verb |
| Meaning | A strip of material wrapped around things to hold them together A narrow strip of cloth or other material on clothing, to bind, strengthen, or ornament it To fasten with a band | Forbidden; not allowed |
| Example | sandstone with bands of shale | none recorded |
| Forms | bands *bands | none |
| Pronunciation | /bænd/ [beənd] ~ [bɛənd] /band/ | /bænd/ [beənd] ~ [bɛənd] /band/ |
| In writing | 83 times per million words | 26 times per million words |
Sources: band and banned in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of band and banned
band
- 1
A strip of material wrapped around things to hold them together
- 2
To fasten with a band
- 3
A group of musicians who perform together as an ensemble; sometimes, such a group working for a professional recording artist
musical band
- 4
To group together for a common purpose; to confederate
- 5
A subgenre of roguelikes, characterized by non-rushed gameplay, levels not being saved upon being left, large numbers of items and a steep power curve
- 6
A narrow strip of cloth or other material on clothing, to bind, strengthen, or ornament it
- 7
To fasten an identifying band around the leg of (a bird)
- 8
A type of orchestra originally playing janissary music; an instance of this type
banned
- 1
Forbidden; not allowed
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, band or banned?
band appears 83 times per million words; banned 26 times per million words.
band 83 times per million wordsbanned 26 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search band vs banned?
“band vs banned” is searched about 40 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“banned vs band”, “band or banned”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.