deterred
Americanadjective
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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.
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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
Derived 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.
"There hasn't been that visible community policing that might have in the past deterred these very obvious shops from springing up."
From BBC • Jun. 7, 2026
While there, Ho opposed several major rules, saying they imposed undue burdens on auditors and deterred new entrants into the field.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 28, 2026
Allies are assured, and adversaries are deterred, by appearances of strength and signals of commitment.
From Slate • May 27, 2026
The mosque and those who attend have come to expect such rhetoric, but it hasn’t deterred those who worship there.
From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026
I was trying to rescue Diego—I’d-never seen him so adorably flustered—but my mother was not easily deterred.
From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson
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.
