embargo

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A government order prohibiting the movement of merchant ships into or out of its ports.
• noun A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation.
• noun A prohibition; a ban.
• transitive verb To impose an embargo on.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To lay an embargo upon; restrain the movement or voluntary use of, as ships or property, especially as an act of sovereignty or of public policy; make a seizure or arrestment of. See embargo, n.
• noun A stoppage or seizure of ships or merchandise by sovereign authority; specifically, a restraint or prohibition imposed by the authorities of a country on merchant vessels, or other ships, to prevent their leaving its ports, and sometimes amounting to an interdiction of commercial intercourse either with a particular country or with all countries.
• noun Hence A restraint or hindrance imposed on anything: as, to lay an embargo on free speech.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun An edict or order of the government prohibiting the departure of ships of commerce from some or all of the ports within its dominions; a prohibition to sail.
• transitive verb To lay an embargo on and thus detain; to prohibit from leaving port; -- said of ships, also of commerce and goods.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An order by the government prohibiting ships from leaving port.
• noun A ban on trade with another country.
• noun A temporary ban on making certain information public.
• verb transitive To impose an embargo on trading certain goods with another country.
• verb transitive To impose an embargo on a document.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb prevent commerce
• noun a government order imposing a trade barrier
• verb ban the publication of (documents), as for security or copyright reasons