prevention
Americannoun
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preventions
plural
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the act of preventing; effectual hindrance.
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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
Word Generation Weekly - Series 2
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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 a prevention of future deaths report James Bennett, a coroner for Herefordshire, said the inability for police forces to provide round-the-clock specialist search officers was being impeded by a lack of training provision.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Today, Americans are living and working longer, and yet prevention hasn’t caught up.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
They also raise the possibility that the gut could become a target for future strategies designed to support brain health and prevention earlier in life.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 4, 2026
In college she wasn’t sure whether to work on pandemic prevention or AI safety, but seven years ago she chose AI safety.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
“We will discuss bullying prevention and conduct exercises to help build bridges between students from different social circles.”
From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan
"There were these pressure alarm mats, but as soon as you stood on them, they would slip from underneath your feet – they were used as preventions, but were actually causing the falls."
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2025
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
Certain preventions, rather than remedies, of which there were none, were now employed by the Mayor.
From The History of London by Sir Walter Besant
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.
