sanatoriums sanction To sanction (verb) something is to approve it; to impose sanctions (noun) is to stop something you disapprove of. So politicians might sanction (permit) the use of sanctions (forbidding) trade with a country they don’t, for the moment, happen to like very much. OED definitions of the noun “sanction” involve penalties or coercion, typically to enforce a law or treaty. So you find “sanction-breaker” (quoted from the Guardian in connection with sanctions against Rhodesia in 1968). Rather chillingly, a draft 1993 addition to the dictionary includes a new definition: “sanction: in military intelligence, the permission to kill a particular individual.”