deterred

[dih-turd]

adjective

1. 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.

2. 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

1. the simple past tense and past participle of deter.

Other Word Forms

• undeterred adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of deterred¹

deter ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Example Sentences

Global companies looking to build factories in India appreciate the country’s vast workforce and its potential as a consumer market, but they are often deterred by bureaucracy.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The agency’s broader recommendations in the past, he said, “deterred healthcare providers from talking about the risks and benefits of vaccination for the individual patient or parent.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Nothing deterred the terror group from its fundamentalist goals, even as Hamas siphoned billions meant for civilians—including U.S.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

McGill, who has slipped to 57th in the world and was playing in his first final in eight years, was not deterred by losing the advantage.

Read more on BBC

The New York Times, which is not regulated by the FCC, has vowed it "will not be deterred by intimidation tactics".

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Related Words

• barred 
• blocked 
• closed 
• confined 
• controlled 
• defined 
• deprived 
• prescribed 
• reduced 
• restrained 
• secured www.thesaurus.com
• shortened www.thesaurus.com
• tethered