Forbid Someone From Doing vs. Forbid Someone To Do
Cambridge documents active forbid + person + to-infinitive and passive be forbidden from + -ing, while its thesaurus also recognizes forbid someone from doing. Both constructions can express prohibition, but their syntactic framing differs.
ReviewedEvidence2 sourcesSectionEnglish Usage
Quick answer
Both constructions can express prohibition. “Forbid someone to do something” is a standard active pattern; “forbid someone from doing something” is also used, with from + -ing especially transparent in passive forms such as “be forbidden from doing.”
Key details
Confusion Familygrammar-and-usage distinction
Rule Familypreposition and verb-complement pattern
TermsForbid Someone From Doing, Forbid Someone To Do
Further guidance
Boundary
Do not force one pattern into the other merely because prohibit normally selects from + -ing. Forbid has its own documented complement options.
Construction
Forbid can take a person plus to-infinitive, and it can also occur with from + -ing. The passive pattern “be forbidden from doing” is directly documented by Cambridge.
Decision
Both constructions can express prohibition. “Forbid someone to do something” is a standard active pattern; “forbid someone from doing something” is also used, with from + -ing especially transparent in passive forms such as “be forbidden from doing.”
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
Cambridge records “accuse someone of something” and specifically “accuse someone of doing something.” That supports of + -ing when the action is the alleged wrongdoing.
Cambridge records accustomed to something and gives -ing examples such as being accustomed to working or being treated in a particular way. Do not interpret the “to” after accustomed as an infinitive marker in this construction.
Cambridge distinguishes adapt to a situation or activity from transitive patterns such as adapting plans to fit new circumstances. The surface sequence “adapt … to + verb” therefore needs its grammatical structure identified before choosing an -ing form or infinitive.
Cambridge distinguishes “apologize to someone” from “apologize for something/doing something.” You can combine the two roles, as in “apologize to someone for doing something”; “to” marks the recipient while “for” marks the reason.
Cambridge distinguishes intransitive “approve of” for a favorable opinion from transitive “approve something” for official acceptance or authorization. The official-authorization sense uses transitive “approve” with an object; do not collapse that separate sense into the “approve of doing” judgment pattern.
Oxford documents the person-action pattern as be banned + from + -ing and separately documents direct-object uses of ban. The cited evidence does not support person + to-infinitive as the equivalent prohibition construction.
