‘屡禁不止’ literally means 'repeatedly banned but does not stop' — it describes a persistent problem that continues despite repeated official attempts to suppress or eliminate it. The four characters combine logically: 屡 (repeatedly), 禁 (to ban/prohibit), 不 (not), and 止 (to stop/cease). Together, they form an idiomatic adjective expressing stubborn recurrence in the face of authority or regulation.

This phrase is commonly used in formal or journalistic contexts — especially when discussing social issues like illegal wildlife trade, counterfeit medicine, unlicensed clinics, or environmental violations. It carries a tone of frustration or criticism toward ineffective enforcement. While grammatically an adjective, it functions predicatively (e.g., ‘问题屡禁不止’) or attributively before nouns (e.g., ‘屡禁不止的现象’), and is rarely used in casual speech.