deterred
Americanadjective
-
discouraged or restrained from acting or proceeding.
A visible thief is a deterred thief, so installing motion-sensing lights on your property helps to protect it.
-
kept from happening; prevented or checked.
Assuming that those 79,000 deterred property crimes have an average cost of $1,900 each, that’s a savings of over $150 million.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of deterred
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Deterred by the time and cost, she said she didn’t try again.
From Washington Post • Feb. 13, 2021
Deterred by the smoke and the emotional toll of seeing their houses incinerated, they turned back, only to return three days later.
From New York Times • Aug. 31, 2020
Deterred from speaking to Oprah herself, Kelley also combed through 2,500-odd clips from Oprah's public pronouncements.
From Reuters • Apr. 23, 2010
Deterred from a religious vocation, Isaac followed his equally radical brother Israel Joshua to the journals of Warsaw.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Deterred by the lateness of the season from attempting further travel by this course, they determined to winter where they were, and built a cabin for their shelter.
From Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier by Severance, Frank H.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.