veto

From Latin vetō (“I forbid”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈviːtəʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈvi.toʊ/, [ˈviɾoʊ], /ˈviˌtoʊ/, [ˈviˌtʰoʊ]
• Rhymes: -iːtəʊ, -əʊ

veto (plural vetoes or vetos)

1. A political right to disapprove of (and thereby stop) the process of a decision, a law etc.
2. An invocation of that right.
   • 1978, Richard Nixon, “The Presidency 1973-1974”, in RN: the Memoirs of Richard Nixon‎^[1], Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 1078:

     I called Haig in and told him that I wanted to veto the agricultural appropriations bill we had discussed in the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, because I did not want Ford to have to do it on his first day as President. Haig brought the veto statement in, and I signed it. It was the last piece of legislation I acted on as President.

   • 2019 June 5, Richard Fausset, “North Carolina Legislature Fails to Overturn Governor’s Veto of Anti-Abortion Bill”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     The failure on Wednesday to overturn Mr. Cooper’s veto was among the most dramatic consequences of Democratic legislative victories in North Carolina last November, which broke Republican supermajorities in both chambers and made it easier for Mr. Cooper’s vetos to survive.

   • 2024 August 31, David W. Chen, “In North Carolina, the Math for a Supermajority May Come Down to One”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Now, Republican legislators cannot afford to lose a single seat, in either chamber, if they want to continue to override his vetoes.

3. An authoritative prohibition or negative; a forbidding; an interdiction.
   • 1876, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 44, in Daniel Deronda, volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:

     This contemptuous veto of her husband's on any intimacy with her family.

4. A technique or mechanism for discarding what would otherwise constitute a false positive in a scientific experiment.
   • 2021 J.R. Wilson and the Hyper-Kamiokande Collaboration 2021 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2156 012153

     An outer detector (OD) region will act as both a passive shield for low energy backgrounds and an active veto for cosmic ray muons.

veto (third-person singular simple present vetoes, present participle vetoing, simple past and past participle vetoed)

1. (transitive) To use a veto against.

   The president vetoed the bill.

   • 1955 March, T. B. Sands, “The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway—2”, in Railway Magazine, page 191:

     The railway was in fact shifted in 1937 a little to the west, over a distance of a quarter-mile, to make room for the by-pass at this point, but complete abandonment was firmly vetoed because of the proved strategic value of the line.

   • 2008 April 15, “A Pullback for Spacs?”, in The New York Times DealBook‎^[4], retrieved 18 November 2020:

     Perhaps more notably, they also expect 25 percent of all Spac acquisitions to be vetoed by shareholders in 2008 — which will force those Spacs to liquidate.

   • 2020 December 17, Don Stacom, “Condemning ‘cancel culture,’ New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart vetoes council vote to remove city’s Columbus statue”, in Hartford Courant:
   • 2024 January 5, Amy Harmon, “Ohio Governor Orders Restrictions on Transgender Care After Vetoing Ban”, in The New York Times‎^[5]:

     Just a week after vetoing a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio issued an executive order on Friday banning gender-transition surgeries for anyone under 18 at state hospitals or ambulatory clinics.

2. (transitive) To countermand.

   Coordinate term: override

   Mom and Dad vetoed our menu preferences for the holiday meal.

• Tove, Vote, to've, vote

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈbɛ.tu]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ˈvə.to]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈve.to]

• Audio (Catalonia):

  (file)

veto

1. first-person singular present indicative of vetar

veto m (plural vetos)

1. veto

   Synonym: vet

• “veto”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “veto”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “veto” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “veto” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): [ˈvɛto]

veto n

1. veto

• “veto”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “veto”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “veto”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

From Latin vetō (“I forbid”).

veto n (singular definite vetoet, plural indefinite vetoer)

1. veto

• veto on the Danish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^da

• “veto” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “veto” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

Borrowed from Latin vetō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈveː.toː/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ve‧to

veto n (plural veto's, diminutive vetootje n)

1. veto

• vetoën
• vetorecht

• voet

From Proto-Finnic *veto, equivalent to vetää (“to pull”) +‎ -o.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋeto/, [ˈʋe̞t̪o̞]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Syllabification^(key): ve‧to
• Hyphenation^(key): ve‧to

veto

1. pull (act of pulling)
2. pull (attractive force)

   Synonyms: vetovoima, imu

3. draught, draft (current of [cold] air)
4. draught, draft (in the flue of a fireplace, stove, or similar)
5. stroke (single movement with a tool; of hand, oar, brush, etc.)
6. (sports) shot, kick (an aimed shot at the goal in a ball game)
7. (colloquial) move, as in a game or similar

   Synonym: siirto

   Tuo oli hyvä veto!

   That was a good move!

8. spurt, sprint (sudden brief rise in activity, etc.)
9. winding (mechanical energy stored in a wound coil in a clockwork or other mechanism)
10. (figuratively) energy, winding, steam

    hyvässä vedossa ― in good form, on a roll

    Minulta alkaa veto loppua. ― I'm beginning to run out of steam.

    Olet kyllä yhä vedossa! ― Man, you've still got it!

11. (medicine) traction (mechanically applied sustained pull)
12. ellipsis of hengenveto (“gasp”)
13. (electronics) trace (on a printed circuit board)

    Synonym: johdin

• “1. veto”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[6] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 1 July 2023

Probably borrowed from Old Swedish væþ, vedh, from Old Norse veð, from Proto-Germanic *wadją. Also associated with veto (etymology 1).

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋeto/, [ˈʋe̞t̪o̞]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Syllabification^(key): ve‧to
• Hyphenation^(key): ve‧to

veto

1. bet, wager (an instance of making a bet)

veto means an instance of betting, an agreement to wager something. The thing wagered is panos.

• “2. veto”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[7] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 1 July 2023

From Latin vetō (“I forbid”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋe(ː)t(ː)o/, [ˈʋe̞(ː)t̪(ː)o̞]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Syllabification^(key): ve‧to
• Hyphenation^(key): ve‧to

veto

1. veto

• “3. veto”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[8] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 1 July 2023

• ovet

• véto (post-1990 spelling)

veto m (plural vetos)

1. veto

   Le Président de la République a mis son véto.

   The President of the Republic put his/her veto.

• Turkish: veto

veto m or f by sense (plural vetos)

1. vet (veterinarian)

   Nous avons dû emmener le chien chez le veto.

   We had to take the dog to the vet.

• “veto”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• vote, voté

From Proto-Finnic *veto, equivalent to vettää (“to pull”) +‎ -o. Cognates include Finnish veto and Estonian vedu.

• (Ala-Laukaa) IPA^(key): /ˈʋeto/, [ˈʋe̞to̞]
• (Soikkola) IPA^(key): /ˈʋeto/, [ˈʋe̞d̥o̞]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Hyphenation: ve‧to

veto

1. pull
2. bet, wager
3. distance between two ice holes
4. draught (draw through a flue)

Declension of veto (type 4/koivu, t- gradation, gemination)
	singular	plural
nominative	veto	veot
genitive	veon	vettoin, vetoloin
partitive	vettoa	vetoja, vetoloja
illative	vettoo	vettoi, vetoloihe
inessive	veos	veois, vetolois
elative	veost	veoist, vetoloist
allative	veolle	veoille, vetoloille
adessive	veol	veoil, vetoloil
ablative	veolt	veoilt, vetoloilt
translative	veoks	veoiks, vetoloiks
essive	vetonna, vettoon	vetoinna, vetoloinna, vettoin, vetoloin
exessive1)	vetont	vetoint, vetoloint
1) obsolete *) the accusative corresponds with either the genitive (sg) or nominative (pl) **) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka? or -kä? to the genitive.

• Ruben E. Nirvi (1971) Inkeroismurteiden Sanakirja, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, page 650

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɛ.to/, /ˈve.to/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ɛto, -eto
• Hyphenation: vè‧to, vé‧to

veto m (plural veti)

1. veto

From earlier votō, from Proto-Italic *wotaō, from Proto-Indo-European *weth₂- (“to say”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈwɛ.toː], [ˈwɛ.tɔ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈvɛː.t̪o]

vetō (present infinitive vetāre, perfect active vetuī, supine vetitum); first conjugation

1. to forbid, prevent, prohibit
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.39:

     “Quippe vetor fātīs.”

     “No doubt it is forbidden by the Fates.”
     (Juno seeks to destroy the Trojans despite the will of the Fates.)

   Synonyms: prohibeō, abdīcō

2. to advise not to
   • 1st c. BC, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum:

     Prāgmaticī hominēs omnibus historiīs, praeceptīs, versibus dēnique cavēre iubent et vetant crēdere.

     Prudent men in all their histories, teachings and verse besides tell us to beware and advise us not to believe.

3. to oppose, veto

   Synonyms: oppōnō, adversor, obversor, refrāgor, recūsō, repugnō, restō, resistō, officiō, subsistō, dīvertō, resistō, obstō

   • 1st century AD, Seneca Minor, Troades, line 334

     Quod nōn vetat lēx, hoc vetat fierī pudor.

     What law forbids not, decency forbids be done.

vetō

1. I forbid it! I protest!

• Used in the Senate by tribunes to oppose objectionable measures.

• “veto”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “veto”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• veto in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[9], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) an old proverb tells us not to..: vetamur vetere proverbio
    
  • the law orders, forbids (expressly, distinctly): lex iubet, vetat (dilucide, planissime)
    
  • (ambiguous) an old proverb tells us not to..: vetamur vetere proverbio
    
  • (ambiguous) to give up old customs: a vetere consuetudine discedere
    
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “ve/otō”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 672

From Latin vetō (“I forbid, oppose, veto”), from votō, votāre, from Proto-Italic *wotāō, from Proto-Indo-European *weth₂- (“to say”).

veto n (definite singular vetoet, indefinite plural veto or vetoer, definite plural vetoa or vetoene)

1. a veto

• “veto” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Latin veto.

veto n (definite singular vetoet, indefinite plural veto, definite plural vetoa)

1. a veto

• “veto” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Unadapted borrowing from Latin vetō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɛ.tɔ/
• Rhymes: -ɛtɔ
• Syllabification: ve‧to

veto n

1. (literary, politics) alternative spelling of weto

• veto in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• veto in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• Rhymes: -ɛtu
• Homophone: beto (Northern Portugal)
• Hyphenation: ve‧to

veto m (plural vetos)

1. (politics) veto (blocking of a process or decision)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

veto

1. first-person singular present indicative of vetar

Borrowed from Latin veto or French veto.

veto n (plural vetouri)

1. veto

From Latin veto.

• IPA^(key): /ʋêːto/
• Hyphenation: ve‧to

vȇto m inan (Cyrillic spelling ве̑то)

1. veto

• “veto”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

• IPA^(key): /ˈbeto/ [ˈbe.t̪o]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Syllabification: ve‧to

From Latin vetō.

veto m (plural vetos)

1. veto

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

veto

1. first-person singular present indicative of vetar

• “veto”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

Borrowed from English veto.

• Audio (Kenya):

  (file)

veto class IX (plural veto class X)

1. veto

   Synonym: kura ya turufu

veto n

1. veto

• vetorätt

• veto in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• veto in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• veto in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

• Tove

From Proto-Finnic *veto.

• (Luutsa, Liivtšülä) IPA^(key): /ˈveto/, [ˈveto]
• Rhymes: -eto
• Hyphenation: ve‧to

veto

1. draft, transportation (with draft animals)

Declension of veto (type II/võrkko, t- gradation)
	singular	plural
nominative	veto	veod
genitive	veo	vetojõ, vetoi
partitive	vettoa	vetoitõ, vetoi
illative	vettosõ, vetto	vetoisõ
inessive	veoz	vetoiz
elative	veossõ	vetoissõ
allative	veolõ	vetoilõ
adessive	veollõ	vetoillõ
ablative	veoltõ	vetoiltõ
translative	veossi	vetoissi
*) the accusative corresponds with either the genitive (sg) or nominative (pl) **) the terminative is formed by adding the suffix -ssaa to the short illative (sg) or the genitive. ***) the comitative is formed by adding the suffix -ka to the genitive.

• Hallap, V., Adler, E., Grünberg, S., Leppik, M. (2012) “veto”, in Vadja keele sõnaraamat [A dictionary of the Votic language], 2nd edition, Tallinn