prevention
Americannoun
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preventions
plural
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the act of preventing; effectual hindrance.
-
a preventive.
This serum is a prevention against disease.
noun
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the act of preventing
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a hindrance, obstacle, or impediment
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of prevention
1520–30; < Late Latin praeventiōn- (stem of praeventiō ) a forestalling. See prevent, -ion
Explanation
When an action stops something from happening, like assigning extra teachers to watch a playground during recess to prevent bullying, it's called prevention. The noun prevention comes up most often when people are trying to keep something bad in check, like crime, disease, or forest fires. Educating kids about nutrition is one form of obesity prevention, for example, and lowering speed limits can help with accident prevention. The word prevent is at the root of prevention, and it comes from the Latin praeventus, "anticipate or hinder."
Vocabulary lists containing prevention
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Prefixes: pre-
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Chemical Engineering
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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.
See Examples For:
In August, a judge ordered Meta to implement product changes and pay an additional $567 million to the state to fund the treatment and prevention of harms caused by Facebook and Instagram.
From Barron's ● Oct. 21, 2026
The results also align with existing dietary recommendations for colorectal cancer prevention, which encourage eating whole grains, fiber, dairy products, and calcium-rich foods while limiting processed meat.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 21, 2026
According to the White House, the aim is to support policy reforms to ensure that women’s research is well-funded and that women have access to “stage-specific prevention, diagnoses, treatment, and care.”
From Salon ● Oct. 21, 2026
Growing financial pressures across the charities sector has been evident in recent months, including the closure of suicide prevention charity Papyrus in September.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
In front of the cabin’s lone window, Owen saw another polar bear prevention device: a ratty old couch.
From "Two Degrees" by Alan Gratz
U.S. taxpayers invested billions of dollars in the effort and were able, until recently, to access treatments and preventions for the virus without paying out-of-pocket for them.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 7, 2023
"Epidemic preventions have been lifted...COVID-19 testing sites are mostly being dismantled... So, because right now in Chaoyang district cases are quite high, it is better to stock up on some medicines," he said.
From Reuters ● Dec. 7, 2022
DuckDuckGo CEO Gabe Weinberg said at the time that the reason for it was a search syndication agreement with Microsoft, and that more updates on third-party tracker preventions were coming.
From The Verge ● Aug. 5, 2022
As a budding health reporter, I tried to learn everything I could about Alzheimer's and wrote about new research on preventions and treatments that everyone wanted to believe had potential.
From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2022
He must use preventions, or inhibitions, as the physiologists term them.
From Voice Production in Singing and Speaking Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) by Wesley Mills
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
