test ban
5
3.7
- noun
- /tɛst bæn/
- Formal
:
prohibición de pruebas
- Many in the international community have worked for a nuclear test ban since the 1950s.
- test ban treaty
- comprehensive test ban
- nuclear test ban
Examples
-
Such a breakdown in the moratorium would destroy near-term prospects for the entry into force of a comprehensive test ban and profoundly undermine efforts to limit nuclear proliferation.
Academic text (2003) -
Of the 152 signatories of the test ban treaty, 36 have ratified it, not including the United States.
Academic text (2000) -
The principal subject of the discussion was a proposed test ban treaty...
-
As long as we maintain the nuclear test ban, those mock tests will be a key source of strategic weapons data.
Academic text (2003) -
By his decision, Clinton rejected the concerns that a total test ban could threaten the nation's security.
Academic text (1995) -
In support of the atmospheric test ban treaty, we performed our nuclear tests underground.
Academic text (1998) -
Under a test ban, only computer calculations will be able to approximate the operation of an entire nuclear weapon.
Academic text (1998) -
Yet in September 1996, New Delhi sought to block the completion of the comprehensive test ban and said it would not sign the treaty.
Academic text (1997) -
A second agreement, the threshold test ban, limited testing to weapons with yields of 150 kilotons or less.
Academic text (1998) -
Many in the international community have worked for a nuclear test ban since the 1950s.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'ban' denotes a prohibition and 'test' denotes an examination or trial, so 'test ban' straightforwardly means a prohibition on tests (here, tests of weapons). This compound pattern (noun + ban) is frequent and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Test ban comes from the simple idea of stopping weapon trials: test means trying a weapon and ban means a rule that stops something. When countries agree not to set off nuclear bombs to try them, they make a 'test ban', so the phrase means an agreement 'to prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons'.